CHAPTER IV. 



EGGS— LARV^.— TIME TO DEVELOPE, ETC. 



The queen commences laying as soon as tne genial 

 warmth of spring opens. If the weather be very mild, 

 she may commence as early as February, but generally 

 in March and April. She does not, however, com- 

 mence her " great laying," as it has been termed, until 

 about the first of May. At this period, she deposits 

 from 100 to 200 eggs per day, and as it takes just twenty 

 days for a worker to emerge from its cell, fully devel- 

 oped, reckoning the time from the day of laying the egg, 

 it follows that all eggs laid on the 1st of May, will pro- 

 duce perfect bees on the 21st of May. 



For a period of about ten years, my bees have not 

 generally swarmed before the first week in June ; and 

 the second swarms have issued about the I2th or 15th 

 of June ; consequently, those bees that went off with 

 second swarms, must have been produced from eggs de- 

 posited about the 20th pf May, since a bee is able to 

 leave the hive on the first or second day of its leaving 

 the cell. 



