128 THE HUMBLE-BEE Vil 
having in each case seen the queen flying in and 
out on several different occasions. Each was of a 
different species—/apzdarius, terrestris, ruderatus, 
hortorum, and latretllellus—and | was looking forward 
with pleasure to digging up the nests and transfer- 
ring them to observation domiciles as soon as the 
first workers appeared. But no workers were seen, 
except in the case of the Zatrez//e//us, and here when 
I came to take the nest the queen was not to be 
found. 
The weather improved towards the end of July, 
and in August nearly all my nests under wooden 
covers developed into populous colonies. 
The experiments were continued on a small scale 
in 1911. This season was in many ways the 
antithesis of the two preceding ones, the weather 
being continuously dry and warm, with the exception 
of a short period of showers and coolness towards 
the end of June, which, however, did not cause the 
humble-bees any inconvenience. Unfortunately the 
previous bad season had rendered queens less plenti- 
ful than usual, and /afzdarius queens in particular 
were scarcer than I had ever before remembered 
them to be. Nine domiciles were made with Sladen 
wooden covers : three of these were occupied, two 
by /apidarius and one by a Zatrezllellus. “Twenty- 
two tin domiciles were made, but only three were 
occupied, two by /afzdarius and one by sylvarum. 
Twelve domiciles of terra-cotta, constructed on the 
principle of the tin domicile, but with the diameter 
at the bottom much larger than at the top, were also 
