II 



34 THE HUMBLE-BEE 



comb. The interstices between the tops of the 

 cocoons are filled with wax, the surface of which 

 is beautifully polished, making the groove in which 

 the queen sits smooth and comfortable. 



Four or five weeks of labour have told heavily 

 upon the queen ; the tips of her wings have become 

 torn and tattered, and when she goes out to gather 

 food she works less energetically than formerly, 

 often stopping to rest on the leaf of a tree or on a 

 blade of grass. As soon as she finds that her 

 children are able to collect sufficient honey and 

 pollen for the maintenance of the little family, she 

 relinquishes this labour, and henceforth devotes 

 herself entirely to indoor duties, laying eggs in 

 increasing numbers and assisting the workers to 

 incubate and feed the brood. Sometimes, however, 

 the workers of the first batch are not sufficiently 

 large or numerous to support the colony. In this 

 case the queen continues going out to work until 

 more workers appear. 



A queen of a prolific species like lapidarius or 

 terresti'is during her most productive period lays a 

 batch of eggs, on an average, daily. 



The queen builds the special cell of wax to 

 receive her eggs upon a cluster of cocoons, gener- 

 ally forming it in a crevice where two or three 

 cocoons meet. I have, however, known a very 

 prolific lapidarius queen to construct an egg-cell 

 on a wax-covered cluster of nearly full-grown larvae. 



It is very interesting to watch a lapidarius queen 

 lay a batch of eggs. An hour or two previously 



