76 THE BROOD. 



able, it does not happen even in them. But if in the 

 natural state,, the space of eleven months be necessary 

 for the male-eggs to acquire that degree of increment 

 they must have attained when laid, how are we to 

 explain the fact of two or three score of these male- 

 eggs making their appearance before the Mother-bee 

 is six weeks old ? Leaving this matter in the obscu- 

 rity which we cannot dispel, we have only farther to 

 observe, that in every case of retarded impregnation 

 the instinct of the Queen appears to be greatly im- 

 paired. She lays her eggs indiscriminately in drone 

 and worker cells ; now and then even in royal cells ; 

 and does not evince that jealousy and irritable temper- 

 ament towards her rivals, which, in the natural state, 

 characterize the Queen. 



Of the Brood. In forty-six hours after impregna- 

 tion, the Queen-bee, as already noticed, begins to lay 

 the eggs of workers, and continues to do so without 

 interruption throughout the season, at the rate of 

 between 100 and 200 a day, unless cold weather in- 

 tervene, when her operations are suspended, as well 

 as the hatching retarded of the eggs already laid. 

 The fruitfulness of the mother-bee is indeed aston- 

 ishing. It has been computed that the numbers pro- 

 duced in a hive by one Queen during the laying sea- 

 son, amount to 100,000 ; and we are satisfied the 

 computation is correct. In the beginning of the year 

 it is a tolerably good stock hive which possesses a 

 population of 2000 or 3000. Yet that same hive 

 shall in June throw off swarms amounting to 40,000 

 or 50,000 ; in many cases the first swarm itself, and 



