258 THE HUMBLE-BEE 



it home a worker from one of my terrestris nests 

 settled on it and began incubating it. 



On July 22, about 9 p.m., I saw the vestalis queen 

 occasionally paying attention to two empty egg-cells. 

 Possibly these had contained workers' eggs, for at 

 another time I saw her quietly eating the eggs in 

 another cell. Sometimes she worked at one cell, 

 sometimes at the other. Soon she became busier 

 and began to work pretty continuously at one of the 

 cells, adding wax to it. At 9.54 she commenced 

 laying eggs in this cell without having previously 

 worked herself up into any excitement, putting the 

 tip of her abdomen into the cell and clasping the 

 latter with her hind feet just like a Bombiis queen. 

 She kept the tip of her abdomen in the cell for 

 about two minutes, and her sting appeared through 

 the wall of the cell several times. During the first 

 minute not a worker approached, but during the 

 second minute she was continually harassed by a 

 worker trying to bite down the wall of the cell from 

 behind. She now kept trying, but without much 

 effect, to beat the worker's head down with her hind 

 feet, which, owing to the incurvature of the abdomen, 

 extend farther beyond it than in Bombus. The 

 worker, however, did not excite or hurry her, and, 

 in fact, did no material damage to the cell. When 

 she had finished I saw several eggs in the cell ; they 

 must therefore have been laid very quickly. She 

 immediately sealed up the cell and then began 

 polishing the surface of it with her jaws. She main- 

 tained this polishing work, almost without ceasing, 



