76 UTILIZATION OF MINUTE LIFE. 



Forty-eight hours after the female bee has returned 

 to the hive she begins to deposit her eggs in the cells 

 destined to receive them. During the first summer 

 few eggs are laid (principally those from which 

 ' ' workers" emerge) . In winter the laying ceases, 

 to re-commence in the spring, when, in about three 

 weeks, more than 12,000 eggs are deposited by the 

 same queen-bee, which begin to hatch in three or 

 four days. 



In a single season a queen-bee will sometimes 

 lay from 70,000 to 100,000 eggs. Keaumur says 

 that upon an average she will lay 200 in a day. 



The queen-bee must be eleven months old before 

 she can produce eggs which produce males, and still 

 older before the eggs she lays will bring forth 

 female bees. 



The second occasion on which the female-bee 

 leaves the hive or nest is when a new female has 

 been born, and emigration becomes necessary. It 

 is then that swarming takes place. When a swarm 

 issues from the hive, it is customary among the 

 peasants to make a noise, to throw sand into the 

 air, and to imitate a storm. The bees then fix 

 themselves in a cluster to some object, from which 

 they are shaken into the new hive. 



One word upon the queen-bee. She is always 

 born in one of the royal cells, which are larger than 

 the others. She receives a particular kind of nourish- 



