12 THE BEE-KEEPER'S MANUAL. 
In such an emergency, impelled by necessity, the 
eges are dropped at random, and carricd off or 
devoured by the bees. No doubt an carly and pro- 
ductive season tends often to this result, and marks 
the necessity of a timely temporary addition to the 
storing room of the family. The great laying takes 
place in April and May, and the number of eggs 
then Jaid in a flourishing hive ranges usually from 
a thousand to fifteen hundred or two thousand per 
day, and has been known even to exceed three 
thousand.* But when we take imto account the 
enormous demand for the supply of swarms, the 
constant deaths occurrmg in the course of nature, 
and the thousands of lives always being sacrificed 
by casualties of various kinds, both at home and 
abroad, even this high estimate necd cause us no 
misgivings. As the cold weather advances, however, 
there ig a tremendous falling-off in the number of 
eges, though the interval is very short in which the 
queen, in a flourishing hive, discontinues laying more 
or less. “Indeed,” observes Mr. Golding, “it appears 
that at any time when the temperature is not too low 
for the bees to appropriate the food that is given to 
them, the queen will deposit eggs.” In November and 
December, however, there will be comparatively none. 
The queen’s rate of feeding varies very naturally in 
proportion to that of her laying. It is the duty of a 
*Von Berlepsch had a queen which he observed to lay six evgs in a 
given minute, 3021 in twenty-four hours, 57,000 in twenty days and. 
to keep on for the five years of her life at a rate of at least! 300.000 per 
year. Similarly Dzierzon tells us that even the generality of queens will 
ina favourable season produce 60,000 per month, and a superior one 
will lay over a million egys in the four years of her life. 
