1923] 
Notes on the Egg-Eating Habit of Bumblebees 
199 
Lindhard (1912). After quoting a part of Hoffer’s (1882-83) 
description and giving a brief resume of Perez^ (1889) explanation, 
Lindhard (pp. 347-349) describes his own observations as follows: 
‘^The lapidarius nest which is shown in Fig. 4 was without 
any wax covering or any other roof during the warm weather 
from the 10, to the 20-22, of August. When the lid of the box 
was opened and a glass plate removed, one could see all that 
took place in the nest. The bees did not let themselves be dis- 
turbed by the lighp. Each evening, from about 4 o'clock until 
7, egg-laying could be observed. Besides the old queen, as a 
rule, 2-4 large workers laid eggs, each one in her low, poorly- 
formed wax-cell. Generally there were 2-3 such small pots in 
use at the same time*****. The egg-laying workers were very 
uneasy, but did not bother one another very much, and only 
seemed to be shoving each other about in order to get a chance to 
lay eggs. If one succeeded in shoving another away from the 
cell, she, as a rule, took the other one’s place. They [the workers] 
could also be seen shoving the queen about while she was en- 
gaged in egg-laying, but I did not see any worker try to take 
her eggs. Once she ran from one cell to another without closing 
the eggs, but a small worker went over at once and closed the 
cell without touching an egg. The queen however seemed 
nervous and jealous when one of the small females [workers] 
tried to lay eggs near her. I saw her one day shove a female 
[worker] away from a cell, carefully examine the eggs in the cell 
throw out three of them, bite the fourth one to pieces, and, after 
having chewed it together with a little pollen, lay it on top of a 
cell of a queen larva. The three other eggs were turned over 
and examined by two small workers and were dragged away. 
‘‘That was another explanation! Those were the un- 
fertilized eggs which were used as food for the young queen 
larvae. 
“In the bumblebee colony the army of workers comes first®, 
in constantly increasing numbers, the individuals of each new' 
batch being larger than those of the preceding one. The last 
^This contradicts one of Wagner’s (1907, pp. 88-89) assertions to which 
reference was made in the earlier part of this paper. 
®This, as I have shown recently (1923, p. 332), is not always the case. 
