PAIRING OF BEES. 250 



bees for economical purposes, that a queen never 

 leaves the hive, except to accompany a mi«;ratino; 

 swarm, which, according' to Huber, is only true of an 

 old queen, all the young ones proceeding- as we have 

 just detailed, within twenty days after their birth, 

 provided they are left at liberty. 



It only remains for us to relate the subsequent 

 history of the males, whose life, as in the case of 

 other insects, is extremely short; the eggs from which 

 they are hatched being- usually laid in April and 

 May, and their destruction terminated in July and 

 August. It had long been remarked that the drones 

 or male bees of a hive perished towards the end of 

 summer, caused by the persecution of the workers, 

 who, according- to John Hunter, drive them from the 

 hive by pinching them with their mandibles. Reau- 

 mur also remarked that, though the males are superior 

 in size to the workers, their want of a sting disquali- 

 fies them for withstanding- the assaults of the latter. 

 He does not seem, however, to have observed the 

 actual massacre, as he terms it, of these devoted 

 males. Swammerdam says that " about the begin- 

 ning of August the common bees become inflamed 

 with so much hatred against the males, that they 

 unmercifully, and for no crime, kill them ; whereas, 

 in May or sooner, they build houses for them, care- 

 fully nourish them, and bring them there, and take 

 all possible care of them. Nor indeed is it difficult 

 for the bees to kill these males, for they are not fur- 

 nished with any weapon to defend themselves *." 



Bonnet, on the other hand, upon examining with 

 the utmost care the bodies of those males which he 

 found dead, could discover no wound nor other mark 

 of violence ; and besides, he has frequently seen the 

 workers mounted upon the backs of males as if they 

 had been about to exterminate them, and yet they 

 * Book of Nature, i. 169, 191, 



