i 3 2 THE HUMBLE-BEE 



might have been maintained if I allowed her to fly, 

 I made a hole in one of my boxes and placed it in 

 the garden. For several hours the queen showed 

 no inclination to leave her brood ; at last she took 

 wing, but though she marked the spot, she never 

 returned. 



This was disappointing, and no further attempts 

 were made for some years not, in fact, until 1910, 

 when a searching terrestris queen having been 

 captured and induced to lay eggs by being confined 

 with another in the manner explained, two terrestris 

 workers were caught at flowers, and after having 

 been kept in a dark box for a few hours, were 

 placed with her. These workers soon became 

 attached to the brood, tending it as if it was their 

 own, with the result that the queen did not desert, 

 and the larvae grew, span their cocoons, and 

 developed into workers. In this way, therefore, 

 a colony was successfully established. 



In the spring of 191 1 this experiment was re- 

 peated with six pairs of queens, and every case 

 proved successful. In some instances, lucorum 

 workers were supplied instead of terrestris workers. 



I also succeeded in getting several queens to 

 start laying with only one worker as a companion, 

 and so the duelling and killing of queens was 

 avoided. But it was difficult to vet the brood 

 reared properly without adding one or two more 

 workers. 



In some cases I allowed the workers to fly after 

 they had settled down, but occasionally they got 



