ours of the twelfth, it remains in a state of complete repose.
Its transformation into a nymph then takes place, in which state four
days and part of the fifth are passed." Now let us add the items:

The egg, 3 days.
A worm, 5 "
Spinning a cocoon, (24 hours), 1 "
Reposes eleven days and 16 hours, 11-2/3 "
A nymph four days, and part of the fifth, 4-1/3 "
-------
25 days.

Now, reader, what do you make of such palpable blundering guess-work? A
difference of nine days--the merest school-boy ought to know better!
Can we rely on such history? Does it not prove the necessity of going
over the whole ground, applying a test to every assertion, and a
revision of the whole matter throughout? My object is not to find
fault, but to get at _facts_. When I see such guess-work as the above
published to the world, in this enlightened age, gravely told to the
rising generation, as a portion of natural history, I feel it a duty
not to resist the inclination to expose the absurdity.

THE NUMBER OF EGGS DEPOSITED BY THE QUEEN GUESSED AT.

The number of eggs that a queen will deposit is often 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 sufficient 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 several 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 found on the bottom-board, among the scales of wax, 118 eggs
that had been discharge