PLACING QUEENS IN NESTS 137 



idea of returning. In the middle of June 1907, 

 when driving along a road near Sandwich, my 

 attention was arrested by about twenty lapidarius 

 queens endeavouring to burrow into a grassy bank 

 facing north, the area of which was only about 

 thirty square yards. The opinion I formed of this 

 strange behaviour of so many queens was that they 

 had been hibernating in the bank and were en- 

 deavouring to return to their burrows in obedience 

 to a strong homing instinct. 



On May 23, 191 1, two ruderatus queens that I 

 had kept together in captivity for four days managed 

 to escape through a hole in the bottom of my bee- 

 house. One of the queens was seen shortly after- 

 wards endeavouring to burrow into the ground 

 close to this hole. 



Encouraged by the return of this queen, I de- 

 termined to make a careful trial of placing queens 

 in empty nests. On May 30 I selected three of my 

 terrestris queens that had been confined three or 

 four days, and at dusk placed them in three of my 

 underground domiciles, one in each domicile, after 

 having sketched in my note-book the shape of the 

 lacerations on the edges of their wings so that I 

 should know each of them again. I had previously 

 placed a bees-wax cell full of diluted honey in each 

 of the nests. On June 2, at 8.30 p.m., I visited 

 each domicile, lifting off the cover and tapping 

 lightly on the nest material, hardly expecting the 

 nests to be occupied. Two of the nests gave no 

 answer, but my tapping on the third produced an 



