72 
BREEDING. 
another point of guess-work. When the estimate does 
not exceed 200 per diem, I have no reason to dispute 
it; the number will probably fall short in some cases, 
and exceed it in others. Some writers suppose that 
this number “would never produce a swarm, as the 
bees that are lost daily amount to, or even exceed 
that number,” and give us instead from eight hundred 
to four thousand eggs in a day, from one queen. The 
only way to test the matter accurately, is by actually 
counting, in an observatory hive, or in one with suffi- 
cient empty combs to hold all the eggs she will deposit 
for a few days, when, by removing the bees, and 
counting carefully, we might ascertain, and yet sev- 
eral would have to be examined, before we could get 
at the average. The nearest I ever came to knowing 
anything about it happened as follows : A swarm left, 
and the queen from some cause was unable to cluster 
with it, and was found, after some trouble, in the grass 
a few rods off. She was put in the hive with the 
swarm about 11 o’clock, A. M. ; the next morning, at 
sunrise, I fouud on the bottom-board, among the scales 
of wax, 118 eggs that had been discharged in that 
time. Probably a few escaped notice, as the color is 
the same as wax scales ; also, they might already have 
bad combs containing some. I have several times 
found a few the next morning, under swarms hived 
the day previous, but never over thirty, except in this 
one instance. The reason of this queen not being able 
to fly well might have been an unusual burden of eggs. 
Perhaps it would be as well to mention here, that in 
all cases where eggs are found in this way, that they 
