vii OUEENS IN CONFINEMENT i*i 



caught a terrestris queen that was searching for a 

 nest, and confined her in a box in which I had placed 

 an artificial nest, keeping her supplied with food. 

 She showed several signs of preparing for a family ; 

 for instance, she would sit in the nest a good deal, 

 and was careful not to soil it, and also she made a 

 great fuss when disturbed. But later these sitms 

 disappeared, and she became restless. 



I repeated the experiment with a good many 

 terrestris queens : some gave the same result, others 

 took no interest whatever in the nest. 



I next tried placing two terrestris queens instead 

 of one in each box. With these I got much better 

 results, and many of them went so far as to lay eggs. 

 Although the queens were often afraid of one another 

 when first put together, they soon became friendly, 

 provided they were allowed to have sufficient room, 

 and the eggs were usually laid about a week after 

 confinement had commenced. But unfortunately, 

 about the time that the eggs were laid, sometimes a 

 day or two before, sometimes a day or two after, one 

 of the queens ^always killed her companion. The 

 surviving queen at first paid every attention to her 

 brood, but within a week she always deserted it, 

 although I took the greatest care not to disturb her, 

 and supplied her with plenty of food, both honey 

 and pollen. In several cases, however, it was 

 ascertained not only that the larvae had hatched, 

 but that they had been fed by the queen, and had 

 begun to grow. 



Hoping that the queen's affection for her brood 



