354 THE BEE. 



tegrity it must be confessed they are at times very lax. 

 Like piratic coasters, these relentless insects, will some- 

 times overtake a rich merchantman of a humblebee, and 

 they will not let him depart till they have relieved him of 

 his rich stores. It is indeed amusing, — though you can- 

 not help compassionating the poor bumblebee, — to see 

 four or five of these nimble highway robbers, mauling 

 and pommelling their awkward and clumsy victim, till 

 they have compelled him to relinquish every panicle of 

 the honey, he has been so laboriously gathering. They 

 then liberate him to return to his labors under the dis- 

 couraging anticipation of being again in like manner 

 pilfered of whatever he may collect. 



Though the honey bee appears to have no antipathy 

 to fraud, he is the inveterate enemy of idleness. The 

 lazy drones. are permitted to live during the summer 

 months, when every flower is laden with its sweet trea- 

 sures, but as soon as autumn comes, and the bees must 

 be sustained during the winter upon what they have 

 been able to collect in the summer, the then useless 

 drones are murdered. They seem to adopt most rigidly 

 the sentiment, * If any one will not work neither let 

 him eat.' The drones are born in April or May. For 

 a few weeks, they live in genteel luxuriance, but in Au- 

 gust they are indiscriminately massacred. Huber who has 

 with great diligence and perseverance studied the hab- 

 its of this insect observed one day the commencement and 

 the termination of this cruel slaus^hter. As the drones are 

 unarmed they have no safety but in flight. The rage of 

 the whole hive seemed to be simultaneously roused. 

 The drones fled in terror ; but overpowered by numbers 

 escape became impossible, and they were all soon stretch- 

 ed lifeless upon the bottom of the hive. And what is 

 very remarkable, in six different hives, this work of ex- 

 termination was going on at the same hour. It is not 

 unusual for some of the workers also to be included in 

 the list of proscription ; obnoxious in consequence of old 

 age or some other cause unknown to us, their associates 

 put them out of existence. 



' Among other virtues possessed by bees, cleanliness is 

 one of the most marked : they will not suffer the least 



