vil Au GRACTING QUEENS 125 
feeding, the honey-pot or some of the empty cocoons 
are filled; but if a regular supply of food is likely 
to be needed I find it much better to provide one or 
two large artificial honey-pots, made of bees-wax 
by dipping several times into molten bees-wax the 
rounded end of a wooden stick previously moistened 
with water. The artificial pots need to have their 
bases firmly fixed to a piece of sacking, or to a mat 
of nest material by means of melted bees-wax, 
otherwise the bees will detach and capsize them. 
In endeavouring to help on a struggling colony | 
often gave it a few just-emerged workers from a 
more prosperous one that could spare them. 
The weather growing extremely bad, I found 
that many of my colonies were losing workers 
faster than they emerged from their cocoons. 
Despite all the feeding and attention I could give 
them they failed to make progress. Some of the 
colonies that had been fed irregularly were reduced 
to three or four small lazy workers sitting with the 
queen on a lump of mouldy, undersized cocoons 
containing diminutive pupze whose development was 
being checked and delayed by repeated chills. It 
was plain that such colonies were on the verge of 
perishing, and that, even had the weather improved 
at once, their survival would have been doubtful and 
their progress at best very slow, for the queen was 
too worn to work much, and during the next three 
weeks only a few puny bees could have emerged. 
For a colony to prosper there must be a good work- 
ing force of strong young bees, constantly reinforced 
