PHYSIOLOGY AND BREEDING. 43 



to one of the other, on an average. Mr. H. says that a 

 queen will lay none but worker eggs from January until 

 about the swarming time, when simultaneously all queens 

 in strong colonies lay drone eggs. Is one division idle all 

 this time? A queen in a weak colony, with but little 

 honey, may be kept all summer without raising a drone ; 

 they are frequently so kept. "What becomes of the divi- 

 sion of drone eggs all this time ? If it were natural 

 for her to deposit them at a particular season, like the 

 putting forth of buds and leaves, then the queens of small 

 families should produce drones according to the season, 

 and not according to the condition of the family. 



That the queen knows any thing about the kind of eggs 

 she is depositing, is, to me, very doubtful. One circum- 

 stance witnessed by myself, has a strong bearing on this 

 subject. A colony in a glass hive had remained quite 

 small up to the middle of June. One outside sheet of 

 comb was three-fourths worker cells. For several days I 

 had observed the bees cutting off the cells in which they 

 had stored honey the previous season, for the purpose of 

 rearing brood. I soon discovered eggs in both worker and 

 drone cells. Shortly after, on opening the dooi", I found 

 the queen engaged in laying eggs in the drone cells. 

 Nearly every one already contained an egg. Most of these 

 she examined, but did not use them. Six or eight, only, 

 appeared to be unoccupied, and in each of them she imme- 

 diately deposited an egg. After depositing the last one 

 in the drone cells, she continued to search for more empty 

 cells, and in doing so, she passed, apparently by accident, 

 upon the worker cells, where she found a dozen or more 

 empty, in each of which, without hesitation, she laid an 

 egg. The whole time occupied was not more than thii-ty 

 minutes. Each produced according to the ceU used, drones 

 in drone cells, and workers in worker cells. It is hardly 

 worth while to tell me that she knew her series of drone 



