THE PASTORAL BEES. 13 
turned intact to the bees. But honey without the 
comb is the perfume without the rose,— it 1s sweet 
merely, and soon degenerates into candy. Half the 
delectableness is in breaking down these frail and 
exquisite walls yourself, and tasting the nectar before 
it has lost its freshness by the contact with the 
air. Then the comb is a sort of shield or foil 
that prevents the tongue from being overwhelmed 
by the shock of the sweet. 
The drones have the least enviable time of it. 
Their foothold in the hive is very precarious. They 
look like the giants, the lords of the swarm, but 
they are really the tools. Their loud, threatening 
hum has no sting to back it up, and their size and 
noise make them only the more conspicuous marks 
for the birds. 
Toward the close of the season, say in July or 
August, the fiat goes forth that the drones must die ; 
there is no further use for them. Then the poor 
creatures, how they are huddled and hustled about, 
trying to hide in corners and by-ways. There is no 
loud, defiant humming now, but abject fear seizes 
them. They cower like hunted criminals. I have 
seen a dozen or more of them wedge themselves into 
a small space between the glass and the comb, where 
the bees could not get hold of them, or where they 
seemed to be overlooked in the general slaughter. 
They will also crawl outside and hide under the edges 
of the hive. But sooner or later they are all killed 
or kicked out. The drone makes no resistance, ex- 
cept to pull back and try to get away; but (putting 
yourself in his place) with one bee a-hold of your col- 
lar or the hair of your head, and another a-hold of each 
arm or leg, and still another feeling for your waist- 
bands with his sting, the odds are greatly against you. 
