1950] 
Haskins and Haskins — B r achy p oner a lutea 
7 
ficial nest from its inception until the maturation of the first 
brood of workers. 
On January 15, 16, and 17, 1918, three isolated fertile 
females of Br achy p oner a lutea were taken in closed cells ex- 
cavated in nearly pure sand under stones in a typical Hawkes- 
bury sandstone area near Sydney, N. S. W. These chambers 
were essentially as. described by Wheeler, but one of the three 
queens had two small worker cocoons, evidently recently spun, 
and a second had several nearly grown larvae in the chamber. 
The third was without brood. The existing brood of the two 
females was destroyed in order to stimulate a recapitulation of 
the founding process, and all three insects were isolated in 
artificial nests. Here they soon excavated typical closed cells, 
which they showed no tendency to reopen. One of the three 
females was lost. The other two shortly produced further eggs, 
which were formed into packets and carefully tended. 
Drops of a dilute solution of honey were proffered to these 
females from time to time, and were greedily accepted when 
thrust within the brood-chamber, but the females did not emerge 
to hunt for them. No solid food was made available. As the eggs 
hatched, the young were fed entirely by regurgitation, and de- 
veloped rapidly. At maturity, the larvae were banked with 
earth in the usual fashion, the cocoons were spun, were cleaned 
by the female, and continued to be attentively cared for. By 
March 15, one of the females had brought to maturity three 
exceedingly small cocoons and had several young larvae, while 
several nearly mature (though still small) larvae were present 
in the other cell. By the end of the month the first cocoon was 
hatched, the extremely small and very callow young worker 
being much assisted by the female in eclosion. A second cocoon 
was successfully hatched by the female on April 11. The young 
workers remained for some time in the parent chamber, which 
was still tightly closed, before essaying to forage for food. No 
assistance was given by the queen in this process, just as the 
queens had shown no tendency to emerge to forage during the 
period of growth of the young. 
These observations would seem to indicate fairly conclusively 
the correctness of the conjectures of Wheeler, first, that feeding 
by ingluvial regurgitated food is the commonest if not the only 
method by which the young queen of B. lutea nourishes the first- 
