82 
BREEDING. 
queens ought to be ready with this kind of egg, 
about the same period of the season, but how are the 
facts ? 
I would like to inquire what becomes of the first 
series of drone eggs, the last of April, or the first of 
May, when the stocks are poorly supplied with 
honey, or when a family is small and but little honey 
through the summer ? No drone brood is matured in 
these cases. It is not pretended that the queen has 
any control over the germination of these eggs, yet 
somehow she has them ready whenever the situation 
of the hive will warrant it. Two stocks may have an 
equal number of bees the first of May ; one may have 
forty jx>*nds of honey, the other four pounds ; the lat- 
ter cannot afford to rear a drone, while the other will 
have hundreds. Let two stocks have but four pounds 
each at any time in summer when honey is scarce, 
now feed one of them plentifully, and a brood of 
drones is sure to appear, while the other will not pro- 
duce one. Whenever stocks are well stored with 
honey, and full of bees, the first of May will find 
drone-cells containing brood. If the flowers continue 
to yield a full supply, these cells may be examined 
every week from that period till the first swarm 
leaves, and I will engage that drone brood may be 
found in all stages from the egg to maturity ; and the 
worker brood the same. In twenty-four days after 
the first swarm leaves, the last drone eggs left by the 
old queen will be just about matured. When trans- 
ferring bees from old to new hives, I generally do it 
about twenty-one or twenty-two days after the first 
