174 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



employed the patient and indefatigable Burnens, who 

 was to him instead of eyes, to watch their proceedings. 

 On the fourth of July this accurate observer saw the 

 massacre going on in all the hives at the same time, 

 and attended by the same circumstances. The table 

 was crowded with workers, who, apparently in great 

 rage, darted upon the drones as soon as they arrived 

 at the bottom of the hive, seizing them by their an- 

 tennsB, their legs, and their wings ; and killing them 

 by violent strokes of their sting, which they generally 

 inserted between the segments of the abdomen. The 

 moment this fearful weapon entered their body, the 

 poor helpless creatures expanded their wings and ex- 

 pired. After this, as if fearful that they were not suffi- 

 ciently dispatched, the bees repeated their strokes, so 

 that they often found it difficult to extricate their sting. 

 On the following day they were equally busy in the 

 work of slaughter ; but their fury, their own having 

 perished, was chiefly vented upon those drones, which, 

 after having escaped from the neiglibouring hives, had 

 sought refuge with them. Not content with destroy- 

 ing those that were in the perfect state, they attacked 

 also such male pupai as were left in their cells ; and 

 then dragging them forth, sucked the fluid from their 

 bodies and cast them out of the hive"*. 



But though in hives containing a queen perfectly 

 fertile (that is, which lays both worker and male eggs,) 

 this is the unhappy fate of the drones ; yet in those 

 where the queen only lays male eggs, they are suffered 

 to remain unmolested ; and in hives deprived of their 

 queen, they also find a secure asylum''. 



What it is that, in the former instance, excites the 



» Huber,i. 195. " Ibid. 199. 



