APIS. 347 



another swarm on the following year, which perhaps she 

 does in those cases of excessive fertility where her abun- 

 dance is estimated at one hundred thousand, when by 

 her sole individual capacity she populates three hives. 

 In the more usual and ordinary case of her teeming with 

 about seventy thousand, or fewer, she evidently heads 

 but one swarm. With the described rapidity of the pro- 

 duction of the cells, although the majority are s^'ore cells 

 and not brood cells, conjunctively with her prolific lay- 

 ing, the population of the hive rapidly increases, which, 

 added to the large original colony, will enable it in a 

 propitious year to throw off a swarm of its own ; but 

 ordinarily she does not again lay drone eggs and royal 

 eggs until the following season. The period at which to 

 do this is taught her by the condition of the hive, as 

 urgent for relief to its oppressive population by an exodus. 

 The drone eggs are then laid, and are speedily succeeded 

 by the laying of the royal eggs, so that the males of tlie 

 season and the new queens may be hatched almost simul- 

 taneously, the drones slightly preceding the develop- 

 ment of the queens. As soon as the egg of a worker 

 is hatched, which, by means of the high temperature, is 

 effected in four days after the laying, it, from its birth, 

 is sedulously attended by the bees called nurse-bees; 

 The little vermicle is very voracious and is heedfully 

 supplied by these careful attendants, when it has con- 

 sumed the quantity of bee bread already deposited in 

 the cell by some of these nurses as soon as the egg was 

 laid. This bee bread consists of pollen, taken from the 

 cells by the nurses, where it is garnered for the pur- 

 pose, being therein mixed with a slight quantity of 

 honey. This, in masticating, the nurses intermingle 

 with some secretion of their own, which gives it a sort. 



