122 THE HUMBLE-BEE vil 
on the contrary, some of my queens became so 
accustomed to frequent rapping that they failed to 
answer unless I knocked very hard. Rapping at 
night, when the queen ought to be at home, was a 
ready means of ascertaining if all was well. 
Considering the frequency of my examinations and 
manipulations, and the various delicate operations 
carried out for the first time, freedom from accident 
could not have been expected. That the mishaps 
were so few shows how well suited humble-bees are 
to treatment, especially when it is remembered that 
with manipulations on honey-bees smoke is always 
used as a quieter. Smoke has no effect whatever 
upon humble-bees. 
Accidents sometimes resulted from the queen 
staying from home for a day or two. Imagining 
she had got lost, I removed the brood to save it, 
and when the queen returned later, finding her brood 
gone, she deserted. 
Two losses in tin domiciles were due to another 
kind of blunder. Lifting out the nests and examin- 
ing them caused them to expand so much that when 
they were put back they practically filled the tins. 
The poor queens on returning home were unable to 
find their brood in the disarranged mass of material 
and, losing heart, deserted. The remedy, of course, 
was to use less nest material or a larger tin. 
Several incidents showed how careful one should 
be, after making an examination, to leave the brood 
in a position where it will be readily found by the 
queen on her return to the nest. In the course of a 
