124 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



her ovaries. The more food of this kind she re- 

 ceives, the greater will be her prolificacy. On the 

 other hand, a diminishing allowance will mean a 

 corresponding decrease in her egg-laying powers ; 

 while, if this rich diet be withheld altogether, and 

 she is forced to help herself from the honey-cells, 

 the development of these eggs may cease entirely, 

 as it actually does in the coldest time of the year. 

 Thus the bees play upon her, producing just the 

 music needed for their purposes. As the days 

 lengthen, and the spring sun gets higher and 

 warmer, they gradually waken her docile nature to 

 its one paramount task. In the flaming weeks of 

 summer she sits at an unending banquet. And 

 when autumn comes, with its chilly nights and 

 steadily failing sun-glow, the generous fare is 

 slowly withdrawn ; her retinue thins and disperses ; 

 at length she becomes a solitary, unmarked 

 wanderer again, sipping, with the commonest 

 worker, at the plain household sweets. 



How the proportion of the sexes is so unerringly 

 regulated by the hive-authorities through their 

 influence on the mother-bee, is not so readily ex- 

 plained ; nor can it be at present more than shrewd 

 conjecture, a backward reckoning from effect to 

 cause. Probably the opening or closing of the 

 fertilising gland, which decides the sex of the egg, 

 is automatic, the attitude of the mother-bee during 

 oviposition determining its action. When she 

 enters the narrow worker-cells, her body is neces- 



