the queen-mother shook her head. "you must not bother me about such things," she said. "i have all that i can do to get the eggs ready, and you must look after the swarm. nobody else can do my work, and i have no time to do yours." as she spoke, she finished the one hundred and seventeenth egg of that day's lot, and before night came she would probably have laid more than a thousand, so you can see she was quite right when she said she had no time for other things.