Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1892 — Oddity In An Eggs. [ARTICLE]

Oddity In An Eggs.

Some silkworms lay from 1,000 to 2,000 eggs, the wasp 3,000, the ant from 3,000 to 5,000. The number of eggs laid by the queen bee has long been in dispute. Burmeister says from 5,000 to 6,000, but Spence and Kirby both go him several better, each declaring that the queen of average fertility will lay not less than 40,000 and probably os high as 50,000 in one season. Termes fatalist’ the white ant, is possessed of the most extraordinary egg-laying propensities of any knowu creature; she often produces 86,400 eggs in a single day! From the time when the white ant begins to lay until the egg-laying season is over—usually reckoned by entomologists as an exact lunar month—she produces 2,500,000 eggs! In point of fecundity the white ant exceeds all other creatures.—[St. Louis Republic.