230 THE HUMBLE-BEE 



the area surrounded by my little trench. Three 

 dead earth-worms lay in the trench. The turpentine 

 odour had passed off but that of the paraffin 

 remained. 



8 p.m. When I came to fill the honey-pot I 

 found that the lump of comb had rolled almost off 

 the sacking, so I hollowed the latter in the middle 

 to retain it. The queen seemed to consider the 

 brood to be insufficiently covered and ran about, 

 pulling and detaching bits of nest material with her 

 jaws and carding them with her legs. She even 

 tried to bite little pieces off the edges of the 

 sacking. While thus occupied she frequently re- 

 turned to the brood, and always when she reached 

 it emitted little buzzes of pleasure. 



July 2. The queen has continued to fly with 

 her tail inclining to the left, but to-day less markedly 

 than at first because both her wings have now 

 become much lacerated. Her flight has become 

 much less swift and strong than formerly. To-day 

 she could fly only slowly and evidently realised her 

 growing feebleness, for she worked a good deal in 

 the garden. She travelled to the sage, S. officinalis, 

 knowing well where the two clumps of it in different 

 parts of the garden were situated, and her thorax 

 was dusted with pollen from an orange lily that 

 stood near her nest. She also visited the birds-foot 

 trefoil on the lawn. But she alighted too on grasses 

 and on the flowers of a sow-thistle, from which, of 

 course, she could obtain nothing. How easily she 

 would now have fallen a prey to a bird had it 



