Longevity and Function of Queen. 77 



they rear a new queen, before all the worker-eggs are gone, 

 and then destroy the old one! 



It sometimes happens, though rarely, that a fine-looking 

 queen, with full-formed ovaries and large spermatheca well- 

 filled with male fluid, will deposit freely, but none of the eggs 

 will hatch. Readers of bee-papers know that I have frequent 

 ly received such for dissection. The first I ever got was a 

 remarkably fine looking Italian, received from the late Dr. 

 Hamlin, of Tennessee. All such queens that I have examined 

 seem perfect, even though scrutinized with a high power ob- 

 jective. We can only say that the egg is at fault, as fre- 

 quently transpires with higher animals, even to the highest. 

 These females are barren ; through some fault with the ovaries, 

 the eggs grown therein are sterile. To detect just what is the 

 trouble with the egg is a very difficult problem, if it is capable 

 of solution at all. I have tried to determine the ultimate 

 cause, but without success. 



The fun ction of the queen is simply to lay eggs, and thus 

 keep the colony populous, and this she does with Ian energy 

 that is fairly startling. A good queen in her best estate will 

 lay two or three thousand eggs a day . 1 have seen a queen 

 in my oberving hive lay for some time at the rate of four 

 e ggs per minute , and have proved by actual computation of 

 brood cells that a quee nmay lav over three thousand egg s 

 in a dav _. Langstroth and JBerlepsch both saw queens lay at 

 the rateof six egg s a minute . The latter had a queen that 



■four hou rs, 

 seven thou- 



laid three thousandand twenty-one egg s in twe nty 

 by actual count, and intwenty days shek idTp^ 



sand. This queen continued prolific for five years, and must 

 have lai3, says the -Baron, at a low estimate more than 1,300,- 

 000 eggs. Dzierzon says queens may lay 1,000,000 eggs, and I 

 think these authors have not exaggerated. Yet, with even 

 these figures as an advertisement, the queen bee cannot boast 

 of superlative fecundity, as the queen white^ant — an insect 

 closely related to the bees in habits, though not in structure, 

 as the white-ants are lace-wings and belong to the sub-order 

 Neuroptera , which includes our day-flies, dragon-flies, etc.— 

 is knownTo lay o ver 80,000 eggs daily f Yet this poor help- 

 less thing, whose ablTomen is the size of a man's thumb and 

 composed almost wholly of eggs, while the rest of her body is 

 not larger than the same in our common ants has no other 



