56 TREATISE ON THE 
but when impregnated she becomes heavy, 
The queen is the parent of the hive, and her 
sole province and occupation consists in lay- 
ing eggs, from which originate those prodi- 
gious multitudes that people a hive, and emi- 
grate from it in the course of one summer. 
In the‘height of the season her fertility is 
truly astonishing, as she lays from 100 to 200 
eggs per day, and even more when the sea- 
son is particularly warm and genial, though 
at a gradually diminishing rate, till the ap- 
proach of cold weather in October. 
So early as February, she resumes her la- 
bors in the same department, and supplies 
the great blank made in the population by 
the numerous casualties that take place be- 
tween the end of summer and commence- 
ment of spring. Her great laying of the eggs 
of workers, begins generally about the fifth 
day of her age; and she continues to deposit 
eggs of the same kind for the succeeding 
eleven months, after which she commences 
laying those of males. It is during the de- 
positing of these last, that the Bees are led 
