THE QUEEN. 63 
laid only male eggs, whilst previously she had also laid fe- 
male eggs. Berlepsch refrigerated three queens by placing 
them thirty-six hours in an ice-house. ‘Two of them never 
revived, and the third laid, as before, thousands of eggs, 
but from all of them only males were evolved. In two in- 
stances, Mr. Mahan has, at our suggestion, tried similar ex- 
periments, and with like results. A short exposure of a 
queen, to pounded ice and salt, answers every purpose. 
The spermatozoids are in some way rendered inoperative by 
severe cold. 
152. The queen begins laying about two days after im- 
pregnation. She is seldom treated with much attention by 
the bees until after she has begun to replenish the cells with 
eggs; although if previously deprived of her, they show, 
by their despair, that they fully appreciated her importance 
to their welfare. 
The extraordinary fertility of the queen-bee has already 
been noticed. The process of laying has been well described 
by the Rev. W. Dunbar, a Scotch Apiarist: 
153. ‘When the queen is about to lay, she puts her head into 
a cell, and remains in that position for a second or two, to ascer- 
tain its fitness for the deposit she is about to make. She then 
withdraws her head, and curving her body downwards, inserts 
the lower part of it into the cell; in a few seconds she turns half 
round upon herself and withdraws, leaving an egg behind her.” 
In the Winter, or early Spring, she. lays first in the mid- 
dle of the cluster, and continues in a circle, around the first 
eggs laid, till she has filled most of the warmed space. She 
then crosses over to the next comb and does the same thing ; 
as the bees always cluster on different combs in groups ex- 
actly opposite, to produce the utmost possible concentration 
and economy of heat for developing the various changes of 
the brood. 
154. Queens lay more or less according to, Ist, The sea- 
son; 2nd, The number of bees that keep up the heat of the 
