64 PHYSIOLOGY OP THE HONEY-BEE. 



brood-nest, and 3d, The quantity of food which they eat. 

 "When bees harvest honey or pollen, or when these necessa- 

 ries are provided artificially by the Apiarist, they feed the 

 queen as they pass by her, oftener than thej' would other- 

 wise ; hence her laying increases in Spring, and decreases in 

 Summer or Fall. It is certain that when the weather is un- 

 congenial, or the colony too feeble to maintain sufficient heat, 

 fewer eggs are matured, just as unfavorable circumstances 

 diminish the number of eggs laid by the hen ; and when the 

 weather is verj' cold, the queen stops laying, in weak colo- 

 nies. 



In the latitude of Northern Massachusetts, we have found 

 that the queen ordinarily ceases to lay some time in Octo- 

 ber ; and begins again, in strong stocks, in the latter part of 

 December. On the 14th of January, 1857 (the previous 

 month having been very cold, the thermometer sometimes 

 sinking to 17° below zero), we examined three hives, and 

 found that the central combs in two contained eggs and un- 

 sealed brood ; there were a few cells with sealed brood in 

 the third. Strong stocks, even in the coldest climates, usu- 

 ally contain some brood ten months in the year. 



155. " Queens differ much as to the degree of their fertility. 

 Those are best which deposit their eggs, with uniform regularity, 

 leaving no cells unsupplied— as the brood hatches at the same time 

 on the same range of comb, which can be again supplied ; the 

 queen thus losing no time in searching for empty cells." — (Dzier- 

 zon.) 



In bee-life, as well as in human affairs, those who are 

 systematic, ordinarily accomplish the most. 



To test the difference of fecundity between queens, Mr. 

 De Layens, while transferring bees (574), in middle April, 

 counted the eggs dropped on a black cloth (577), in forty 

 minutes, by the queens of four different colonies. The 

 poorest queen dropped but one egg, the second twelve, the 

 third eighteen, and the fourth twenty. On the fifteenth of 



