x AW FOSTER-MOTHER 237 
seemed to have made her content to remain 
inside, 
From this date the colony prospered exceedingly, 
and in the middle of August, when its population 
was at the highest, it must have contained over 200 
workers. I attribute this good result to the intro- 
duction of a vigorous queen into a nest containing 
plenty of well-developed worker brood and inter- 
fering with it as little as possible. No doubt, too, 
the earthen domicile under the wooden cover quite 
suits the requirements of the humble-bees. 
AN OBSERVATION NEST IN MY STUDY. 
On July 4, 1910, one of my /apidarius queens 
that had started nesting in one of my artificial 
domiciles was found dead inside a mouse-excluder I 
had placed over the mouth of the hole. She left 
a brood of pupa, larve, and eggs, and five puny 
workers. All these I gave toa searching lapidarius 
queen that had been caught the previous day, and 
had since been kept in confinement. 
I first introduced the queen to the brood. While 
she was yet an inch away from it she suddenly 
abandoned her ordinary dull and careless manner 
and, standing at attention, stretched out her antenne. 
No doubt she had smelt the brood and was anxious 
to get to it, but restrained herself for fear of encoun- 
tering a rival. Then she cautiously advanced, and 
when, half a minute later, she reached the brood she 
showed great satisfaction and pleasure, and immedi- 
ately stretched herself over it. 
