COMPLETE DOMESTICATION 141 



and six in a smaller one, with about double these 

 numbers of males, but instead of placing loose earth 

 in the bottom of the boxes I removed the bottoms 

 and stood the boxes on the ground in shady places. 

 In each box I placed a wire-cloth tray containing 

 moss. During the first five days I filled the artificial 

 flowers with diluted honey, morning and afternoon, 

 then I gradually reduced the supply, stopping it 

 altogether on August 27. 



On September 5 I made an examination of the 

 large box containing the ten queens. None of the 

 queens had buried themselves in the moss as I had 

 hoped, but all (except two that died) had crept in 

 under the wire-cloth where they had fallen into a 

 stupor. I killed one and found that her honey-sac was 

 full of honey as in a hibernating queen. Unfortun- 

 ately all the queens woke up and flew away, but if I 

 had not disturbed them there seemed to be no reason 

 why they should not have wintered successfully. 



On September 9 four of the queens in the small 

 box were found to be dead. Another queen was 

 hibernating in the moss, for there was a low feeble 

 buzz when I touched the moss. But the next day 

 it was seen that this queen had crept out, no doubt 

 because she was disturbed. On September 18, at 

 6 p.m., a cold evening, I cautiously lifted the tray in 

 this box, and found the remaining queen in a torpid 

 condition underneath it. Unfortunately, on the 

 next day, this queen was also seen crawling about. 

 Evidently the least disturbance causes the queens 

 to evacuate their hiding-places. 



