THE QUEEN-BEE. 27 



would have had fourteen hours for rest. The queen 

 kept up her rate for twenty days, in which time she 

 had filled 57,000 cells, and, what is very remarkable, 

 her fecundity is said to have continued for five years, 

 during which period she must have laid nearly a 

 million and a-half of eggs. Dzierzon says, " Most 

 queens, in spacious hives, and in a favourable season, 

 lay 60,000 in a month, and a specially fertile queen, 

 in the four years which she on an average lives, 

 lays over a million eggs." These numbers will give 

 some idea of the immense expenditure of life that is 

 continually going on. 



To keep up these very great productive energies, 

 it is evident that large quantities of food must be 

 consumed by the mother-bee, and, as we should 

 expect, the amount taken varies in the ratio of the 

 vigour of egg-laying. 



It sometimes happens that, in the very height of 

 her duties, sufficient cells are not forthcoming as 

 places of deposit for eggs ; and, in that case, the 

 queen leaves some on the combs, or at the bottom 

 of the hive. Strange to say, the worker-bees greedily 

 devour such waifs and strays. In this respect we 

 observe a great difference between ants and bees. 

 Among the latter we do not find that passionate 

 love and care for the eggs and larvae which so 

 strongly mark the former. Other circumstances 

 of a similar kind, to be noted later on, show, on the 

 part of bees, an intense regard for stores rather than 

 progeny, notwithstanding their affection and devo- 

 tion to the mother-bee, whose functions they thus 

 acknowledge as all-important to the race. 



The egg-laying of the queen goes on more or less 



