THE BROOD-BEARING CYCLE OF THE HONEYBEE 35 



where the queen was able to maintain an egg-laying rate which was 

 normal in its response to the varying stimuli of the season as modified 

 by the condition of the colony itself. Thus in these colonies the 

 possibility of the occurrence of such a large excess of idle young bees 

 as would be conducive to swarming was reduced to a minimum, a 

 fact which may account largely for the absence of any indication of 

 a swarming impulse in either season. 



EGG LAYING 



From the counts of sealed brood (Tables 1 to 17), the maximum 

 daily egg-laying average over a 12-day period has been calculated 

 for each of these colonies, 12 days being the average time repre- 

 sented by sealed worker brood. Any daily average derived from 

 sealed brood is not to be interpreted as representing the actual daily 

 egg-laying performance of the queen bees in question, since it has 

 long been recognized that a queen bee lays more eggs than ever 

 develop into adults. This excess of eggs is often very evident in 

 spring, becoming less apparent during maximum brood-rearing 

 activity, and again becoming evident in the fall. The constant 

 seasonal correlation found in the weekly counts of sealed brood 

 throughout the years covered by this investigation shows, however, 

 that a reliable index to seasonal brood-rearing activity may be ob- 

 tained by counts of sealed brood. Since the success of brood-rearing 

 activity is to be gauged by the number of adult bees reared, it is 

 evident that this is more closely determined from counts of sealed 

 brood than from any other type of brood count. 



In neither season did the queen in colony No. 4 approach any such 

 a daily egg-laying rate as that found by Von Berlepsch (3) in his exper- 

 iment. The same holds true of the other 15 colonies studied in 1921. 

 The highest daily average during any 12-day period, as derived from 

 the counts of sealed brood, was found to be 1,587, and represents the 

 performance of the queen in colony No. 4 in 1922, her highest similar 

 rate in 1921 being 1,488. Of the other colonies in 1921, colony No. 14 

 had a maximum daily rate of 1,513. Five colonies (Nos. 2, 6, 11, 

 15, and 16) show maximum daily rates between 1,250 and 1,400, 

 while the similar rates of six (Nos. 1, 5, 9, 10, 12 and 13) were between 

 1,000 and 1,250. In 1921 the maximum daily average of each of the 

 1919 queens is below 1,000. The time relations between maximum 

 brood-rearing activity and nectar flows or pollen yields have already 

 been discussed for each colony. The queen in colony No. 12, even 

 in September, shortly after first beginning to lay, attained a daily 

 average of 905. 



In the colonics studied in 1920 an egg-laying rate of over 1,500 per 

 day was attained in only one colony, the queen in colony A averaging 

 1,528 eggs per day for one 21-day period. In colony D, in the same 

 year, the queen attained a maximum daily rate of 1,468 eggs for one 

 21-day period, and the maximum daily egg-laying rates of the queens 

 in colonics E, B, and C for any 21-day period were 1,223, 1,201, and 

 L00S, respectively. These daily averages may be compared with 

 Dufour's (II) maximum daily average of 1,627 during any 21-day 

 period. On the other hand, Baldensperger (/), in his estimates al- 

 ready referred to, gives 2,000 as a daily average for a period of 23 

 days. It must be remembered, however, that Baldensperger's 

 method is not adapted for strictly accurate scientific results. Of tho 



