WAX 379 



to do it if she had. To lay and lay is her one and 

 only function. 



"The business of father falls to six or ei-ht hun- 

 dred idlers called drones. They are larirer than the 

 workers and smaller than the queen. Their large 

 hulking eyes join together on the 

 top of the head. They have no 

 sting. Only the queen and the 

 workers have the right to carry the 

 poisoned stiletto. The drones are 

 deprived of this weapon. One asks, what use are 

 they? One day they form a retinue of honor 

 to the queen, who takes a fancy to fly through 

 the air ; then hardly anything more is heard of them. 

 They perish miserably in the open, or, if they return 

 to the hive, are coldly received by the workers, who 

 look at them unkindly for exhausting the provisions 

 without ever adding to them. At first they treat 

 them to some smart blows to show them that idlers 

 are not wanted in a working society; and if they fail 

 to understand, a resolution is taken. One fine morn- 

 ing they kill every one of them. The bodies are 

 swept out of the hive, and that 's the end of it. 

 "Kow come the workers, about twenty or thirty 

 thousand bees to one queen. These are 

 called working bees. They are the 

 ones you see in the garden flying from 

 one flower to another, gathering the 

 harvest. Other workers, a little older 

 and consequently more experienced, remain in the 

 hive to look after the housekeeping and to distribute 

 nourishment to the nurslings hatched t Yom the eggs 



