THE BEOOD-EEAEIXG CYCLE OF THE HONEYBEE 35 
where the queen was able to maintain an egg-laying rate which was 
normal in its response to the varying stimuli of the season as modified 
by the condition of the colony itself. Thus in these colonies the 
possibility of the occurrence of such a large excess of idle young bees 
as would be conducive to swarming was reduced to a minimum, a 
fact which may account largely for the absence of any indication of 
a swarming impulse in either season. 
EGG LAYING 
From the counts of sealed brood (Tables 1 to 17), the maximum 
daily egg-laying average over a 12-day period has been calculated 
for each of these colonies, 12 days being the average time repre- 
sented by sealed worker brood. Any daily average derived from 
sealed brood is not to be interpreted as representing the actual daily 
egg-laying performance of the queen bees in question, since it has 
long been recognized that a queen bee lays more eggs than ever 
develop into adults. This excess of eggs is often very evident in 
spring, becoming less apparent during maximum brood-rearing 
activity, and again becoming evident in the fall. The constant 
seasonal correlation found in the weekly counts of sealed brood 
throughout the years covered by this investigation shows, however, 
that a reliable index to seasonal brood-rearing activity may be ob- 
tained by counts of sealed brood. Since the success of brood-rearing 
activity is to be gauged by the number of adult bees reared, it is 
evident that this is more closely determined from counts of sealed 
brood than from any other type of brood count. 
In neither season did the queen in colony No. 4 approach any such 
a daily egg-laying rate as that found by Von Berlepsch (J) in his exper- 
iment. The same holds true of the other 15 colonies studied in 1921. 
The highest daily average during any 12-day period, as derived from 
the counts of sealed brood, was found to be 1,587, and represents the 
performance of the queen in colony No. 4 in 1922, her highest similar 
rate in 1921 being 1,488. Of the other colonies in 1921, colony No. 14 
had a maximum daily rate of 1,513. Five colonies (Nos. 2, 6, 11, 
15, and 16) show maximum daily rates between 1,250 and 1,400, 
while the similar rates of six (Nos. 1, 5, 9, 10, 12 and 13) were between 
1,000 and 1,250. In 1921 the maximum daily average of each of the 
1919 queens is below 1,000. The time relations between maximum 
brood-rearing activity and nectar flows or pollen yields have already 
been discussed for each colony. The queen in colony No. 12, even 
in September, shortly after first beginning to lay, attained a daily 
average of 905. 
In the colonies studied in 1920 an egg-laying rate of over 1,500 per 
day was attained in only one colony, the queen in colony A averaging 
1,528 eggs per day for one 21-day period. In colony D, in the same 
year, the queen attained a maximum daily rate of 1,4G8 eggs for one 
21-da}' period, and the maximum daily egg-laving rates of the queens 
in colonies E, B, and C for any 21-day period were 1,223, 1,201, and 
1,008, respectively. These daily averages may be compared with 
Dufour's (11) maximum daily average of 1,G27 during any 21-day 
period. On the other hand, Baldensperger (1), in his estimates al- 
ready referred to, gives 2, GOO as a daily average for a period of 23 
days. It must be remembered, however, that Baldcnsperger's 
method is not adapted for strictly accurate scientific results. Of the 
