THE GENESIS OF THE QUEEN 109 



the queen, and under exceptionally adverse condi- 

 tions egg-laying may be entirely arrested. This 

 may also take place in the height of the season, 

 and in full favour of sunshine and plenty, if the 

 hive is a small one, and the limit of its capacity 

 has been reached. The combs will then be full of 

 either honey or brood, and the queen must wait 

 until laying space can be cleared for her. That 

 she is able to do this — that her powers can be 

 augmented or restrained, according to the needs 

 of the colony, and that the proportion of the sexes 

 in the hive can be varied at will to suit like con- 

 tingencies — can only be understood when the 

 details of her life-history have been passed under 

 review. 



In the normal, prosperous colony, which we are 

 now studying, the queen will be in her prime, and 

 under natural conditions will remain at the head 

 of affairs until she goes out with the first swarm 

 in May or June. A queen-bee is at the zenith of 

 her fecundity in the second year of her life. After 

 that, her egg-laying powers steadily decline, 

 although she may live to be four, or even five, 

 years old. But the authorities in a hive rarely 

 allow a mother-bee to retain her position after she 

 has shown signs of waning energy. Preparations 

 are at once set on foot for the raising of another 

 queen. 



A very old queen will have lost her power to 

 lay worker-eggs, and will have become nothing 



