vil QUEENS IN CONFINEMENT b33 
lost, and as it was early in the season and workers 
were scarce, I found it best to keep them confined 
until they were reinforced by the young workers 
that emerged, feeding them regularly with honey 
and pollen. Letting them out, however, on fine 
days always had a good effect, and when at 
last they were numerous enough to be allowed 
continuous liberty, the brood flourished and multi- 
plied rapidly. 
The chief difficulty, indeed, in starting these 
colonies was in finding sufficient ¢errestris and 
lucorum workers for them. These workers do 
not appear until June, and are not plentiful until 
July. Fortunately ¢errestrvzs queens, unlike those 
of any other species, continue to appear for five or 
six weeks after the majority of the nests have been 
started, and may be found in numbers searching 
for nests throughout June and in the beginning 
of July. 
With the object of overcoming the difficulty in 
obtaining workers, I tried to get a ¢errvestrzs colony 
started with the workers of 4. pratorum, which 
appear earlier than those of any other species, and 
may always be taken in plenty on the flowers of the 
white dead-nettle towards the end of May. 
Two searching ¢evrestris queens were caught 
and confined together on May 12. On May 22 | 
introduced a Aratorum worker into the nest. On 
May 23 one of the queens killed the other, and 
laid some eggs. The fratorum worker took no 
notice of the eggs. On May 24 I gave two more 
