98 MORE ABOUT WHAT THE BEES DO. 



every bee has its work, and works hard — works itself 

 to death in a short time, but I want to point out a 

 little more of the manner in which it works, and how 

 it uses, and makes the most of, the various materials 

 it gathers from the fields. 



Of the queen I need not say much more. Her 

 work is simply, as the honoured mother of the whole 

 family, to lay the eggs which shall hatch into young 

 bees to take the place of those lost by death, and 

 thus keep up the full necessary strength of the colony, 

 and furnish swarms for emigration. For this purpose 

 she is made, and, beyond . laying eggs, she does 

 nothing, — never in any way taking care of her eggs 

 after they are in the cells, but leaving all this to the 

 workers. 



But truly astonishing is the number of eggs the 

 queen will lay, — as many as even 2000 or 3000 in the 

 course of a day during the height of the honey season, — 

 a very good day's work indeed ! A queen has been 

 seen to lay at the rate of six, or even eight eggs in a 

 minute, putting each egg into its own cell ; so that it is 

 no exaggeration to say, as I mentioned before, that a 

 queen, in the course of her life of three, four, or even 

 five years, will lay more than a million of eggs. 



The number of eggs, however, that she lays always 

 greatly varies, not only with her age, but also ac- 

 cording to the time of year and the weather. An 

 old queen, as a rule, never lays so many eggs as a 

 young one. She is generally at her best when from 

 one to two years old. She will usually begin egg- 

 laying in February, but instinct guides her not to begin 

 before there is good promise of sufficient food to be 



