62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN 



watch. "She has heen mated," he calmly 

 said. "Where is her Mate?" she asked. 

 "Dead! But busied with her new duties of 

 motherhood she will neither know nor 

 mourn. The instinct of the hive saves them 

 from grief, and promotes the joyful con- 

 tinuance and welfare of the colony life. 

 She has been absent just seven minutes." 



Almost immediately after my safe ar- 

 rival, that is, within four or five hours, my 

 nature urged me to begin my life work of 

 laying eggs, and to haste to make up for 

 the period which had elapsed in the hive 

 since my mother's last eggs were deposited, 

 during which time none had been laid. 

 Cells were being rapidly emptied by emer- 

 ging bees at the rate of about three thousand 

 a day. Thus I fell to replacing these at 

 practically the same daily rate. My method 

 was to travel from cell to cell. A glance 

 into one told whether an egg had already 

 been deposited there. In case not, I 

 grasped one edge of the cell with my fore 



