194 MONEY IN BEES IN ATJSTKALASIA 



the best feeding and housing in the world cannot cause 

 a fresh growth of ovules. The hen has laid the number 

 of eggs she was created to lay, and her career, as an egg- 

 producer, is at an end. 



Is it not so with queens 1 They lay in spring, summer, 

 and gradually contract their laying towards winter, until 

 the rigour of the season causes complete (in some cases 

 at least) cessation of oviparous duties on the part of the 

 royal mother. This enables the queen to rest, not because 

 the ovaries require replenishing, for this is impossible, 

 but because it permits the original and final number of 

 eggs to be deposited over a much longer period. Not for 

 one moment should one imagine the queen sole arbiter 

 in this matter; for food plays an important part in the 

 number of eggs laid for the day, for a week, or a year, 

 but not for the queen's lifetime. The food and season 

 only determine the number of eggs for a given period, and 

 cannot influence the total number of eggs laid. 



Mr. Garrett, one of our most experienced apiarists, 

 and son of one of the pioneers of modern bee-farming 

 in Australasia, had an imported queen four or five years 

 old. She was a fine, large, well-developed queen and 

 apparently strong, but had ceased to lay for some 

 considerable time before her death, thus demonstrating 

 the contention that the ovaries had reached the limit of 

 productiveness. Since the queen did not produce drones 

 out of proportion towards the end, the fertilising fluid 

 must have been sufficient for the number of ovules. 



This is not the case with the drone layers; for the 

 fertilising spermatozoa are exhausted before the ovaries 

 become barren, and as egg production is persisted in, the 

 result is unfertile eggs, and drones. The author is 

 unable to recall any specific instance of microscopic 

 examination of queens that had ceased to lay through 

 exhaustion of the ovaries, revealing the presence of the 

 semen. Harking back to apiculture, should the season 

 for honey production be so extended as to cover a period 

 of double the ordinary time, is it not clear that a greater 



