vii ATTRACTING 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 I 

 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 pupae 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 



