hives, as soon as the young queens are hatched, that Huber has often observed the thermometer placed in the hive, rise suddenly from about 92° to above 104° Fahrenheit. This suffocating heat he considers as one of the means employed by nature for urging the bees to go off in swarms. _In warm weather one strong hive has been known to send off four swarms in 18 days._ _Vide_ Chap. XIII. According to Huber, _the queen ordinarily lays about 12,000 eggs in two months_, one impregnation serving, as has been before stated, for the whole complement of eggs, of every description, which she lays during two years at least. It is not to be supposed that she lays at the rate of 12,000 eggs every two months, but she does so at the principal laying in April and May: there is also another great laying in August. Early in November the laying usually ceases. Reaumur states the number of eggs laid by a queen in two months at double the amount of Huber's calculation; viz. 200 a day, on an average. This variation may have arisen from variety of climate, season, or other circumstances. _A moderate swarm has been calculated to consist of from 12,000 to 20,000_, which is about a two months' laying. Schirach says that _a single queen will lay from 70,000 to 100,000 eggs in a season_. This sounds like a great number; but it is greatly exceeded by some other insects. The female of the white ant extrudes not less than 60 eggs in a minute, which gives 3600 in an hour, 86,400 in a day, 2,419,200 in a lunar month, and the enormous number of 211,449,600 in a year. Though she does not lay all the year probably, yet, setting the period as low as possible, her eggs will exceed the number produced by any other known animal in creation.