nesses are their weaknesses. Any apiarist is likely to have had two colonies side by side, perhaps each equalling the other in amount of brood and number of bees, and one may have produced five dollars' worth of honey in a season, while the other did not produce half of that; and the queens alone caused this discrepancy. One produced energetic, capable offspring, while the progeny of the other were unenterprising. The offspring of one were perhaps sweet-tempered and obliging, and those of the other, cross and cranky. Thus it is all-important to give the colony a good mother. A queen, to be perfect, should be well-bred, handsome and strong, and capable of laying from two to three thousand eggs per day during the height of the season, and especially should she have offspring possessing a kindly disposition.
The laying queen is a very graceful insect; her body is long and pointed, and extends far behind the tips of her closed wings. Svelte is a graphic word applied to her figure by the Spectator; just a glance at her reveals her splendid physical development and proves her a queenlier bee than those that gather around her. It is a sight that makes men feel how very limited is their knowledge of any other world than their own to see the queen bee, surrounded by her ring of attendants, each with head toward her, as if she were the centre of a many-rayed star.
The development of the queen from the egg has ever been a most interesting and, at the same time, a most puzzling subject for investigation on the part of
