i 3 4 THE HUMBLE-BEE 



pratorum workers. On May 26 the queen laid more 

 eggs, and the pratorum workers recognised the 

 nest, but showed dissatisfaction with the comb, 

 and sat apart by themselves. On June 2 the 

 queen still sat on her brood, but the workers con- 

 tinued to ignore the brood, and near it had con- 

 structed some waxen cells upon which they sat. 

 On June 10 the workers began to pay attention 

 to the lump of brood, to which, it turned out after- 

 wards, they had about this time added some eggs, 

 but they continued to keep busy with their abortive 

 waxen cells, which now numbered eight, and were 

 of all sizes, the smallest no larger than egg-cells 

 and built on the rims of the largest ones. On 

 June 21 two abnormally small terrestris workers 

 emerged ; they had evidently been half-starved in 

 the larval stage, the cocoons having been spun 

 many days late. On June 24 two more dwarfed 

 workers emerged. On July 3 a pratorum male was 

 seen in the nest. On July 13 the nest contained 

 eleven undersized terrestris workers, two of the 

 original pratorum workers (one of these had died 

 or been killed), three pratortim males, and the 

 terrestris queen. The brood was not in a flourish- 

 ing condition, for it consisted only of two lots of 

 small larvae, but this was no doubt in great measure 

 due to the fact that the bees had been kept in con- 

 finement the whole time, a period of over seven 

 weeks. 



Evidently the company of the pratorum workers 

 in the early stages of this nest encouraged the queen 



