THE QUKEN. 63 



laid only male ojigs, whilst previously she had also laid fe- 

 male eji'iis. Ik'i'lopsi'h rofrigeraU'd throe (nieens liy ijlaeing 

 them thirty-six hours in an iee-house. Two of them never 

 revived, and the third laid, as before, thousands of eggs, 

 but from all of them onlji in<tJen ircn' ernJved. 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 iee and salt, answers every purpose. 

 The spermatozoids are in some vfa.j rendered inoperative by 

 severe cold. 



162. 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 malve. 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, Ixt, The sea- 

 son ; 2nd, The number of bees that keep up the heat of the 



