VII COMPEETE DOMESTICATION  rqi 
and six in a smaller one, with about double these 
numbers of males, but instead of placing loose earth 
in the bottom of the boxes I removed the bottoms 
and stood the boxes on the ground in shady places. 
In each box I placed a wire-cloth tray containing 
moss. During the first five days I filled the artificial 
flowers with diluted honey, morning and afternoon, 
then I gradually reduced the supply, stopping it 
altogether on August 27. 
On September 5 I made an examination of the 
large box containing the ten queens. None of the 
queens had buried themselves in the moss as | had 
hoped, but all (except two that died) had crept in 
under the wire-cloth where they had fallen into a 
stupor. I killed one and found that her honey-sac was 
full of honey as in a hibernating queen. Unfortun- 
ately all the queens woke up and flew away, but if I 
had not disturbed them there seemed to be no reason 
why they should not have wintered successfully. 
On September 9 four of the queens in the small 
box were found to be dead. Another queen was 
hibernating in the moss, for there was a low feeble 
buzz when I touched the moss. But the next day 
it was seen that this queen had crept out, no doubt 
because she was disturbed. On September 18, at 
6 p.M., a cold evening, I cautiously lifted the tray in 
this box, and found the remaining queen in a torpid 
condition underneath it. Unfortunately, on the 
next day, this queen was also seen crawling about. 
Evidently the least disturbance causes the queens 
to evacuate their hiding-places. 
