S14 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



joints to the male's thirteen. These myste- 

 rious "feelers" are also more profusely pro- 

 vided with "smell hollows," no fewer than 

 of these being found on the two antennae. 

 They are indeed crowded together so closely 

 as to give little or no room for the tactile 

 hairs. For the male which is to seek the 

 female, this is exactly what might be looked 

 for. He possesses sixteen spiracles instead 

 of fourteen, and thus his air-sacs are enor- 

 mously developed. He has a very large 

 spread of wing compared with that of the 

 queen or worker while the hooklets number 

 24. Various other organs are more profuse- 

 ly covered with hairs than those of either 

 queen or worker, and this is particularly 

 noticeable on the front of the face, the hairs 

 on the jaws, the feathered hairs on the dig- 

 iti, the first dorsal plates, and on various 

 parts of the abdomen. His one duty re- 

 quires that he be highly fed, for only con- 

 centrated food can fully develop the con- 

 tents of his spermatophore; therefore he 

 feasts like any gourmand and lives the life 

 of a sybarite. 



If we consider the one duty of the drone's 

 life, that for which he has been called into 

 being, we shall at once appreciate the rea- 

 son for the special development of his wing 

 powers, the extra perfection of his antennae, 

 the abnormal size of his compound eyes, 

 and the enormous number of his smell-hol- 

 lows. 



The drone's powers of vision and of flight 

 are magnificent. His splendid compound 

 eyes are admirably fitted for carrying out 

 the one duty and function of his existence. 

 Occupying almost the entire space on both 

 sides of his head and a great part of the 

 front, they are excellently adapted to assist 

 him in carrying out his great work to per- 

 fection. In his flights through the air their 

 immense magnifying powers enable him to 

 pierce with keen vision the liquid blue, and 

 so he is enabled to detect any royal virgin 

 out for her nuptial flight, while all three 

 ocelli, or simple eyes, placed in a close clus- 

 ter right in front of his forehead, closely ob- 

 serve her every motion, and follow minute- 

 ly every movement in her quick aerial flight. 

 Rapid as is her progress in the pure ether, 

 his powers of flight excel, though only in 

 this case one out of (it may be) a thousand. 

 Swiftly and unerringly, therefore, he pur- 

 sues her until he brings about the great con- 

 summation of his existence. Those who 

 stupidly and erroneously designate him a 

 lazy drone should see him then, when every 

 muscle is strained to the fullest tension, 

 when every nerve is strung to its utmost 

 powers; when every thought and sentiment 

 of his being is focused on one object — to out- 

 strip all rivals and be the first to reach the 

 goal of his and their longings. 



The race is here to the swift! All punv, 

 weak, or starveling males; all who are small, 

 feeble, or delicate; those undeveloped, 

 dainty, or luxurious; and all sickly and in- 

 firm, each according to the want of vitality, 

 drops out of the race at an early stage until 

 only the virile, vigorous, and manly remain. 



At length only a tithe of the most powerful 

 and best developed remain as royal suitors. 

 At last only the fittest survives and becomes 

 the means for perpetuating the race. Here 

 is a scheme magnificent in its conception, 

 exquisite in its development, and perfect in 

 its fulfillment. 



Tennyson tells us that out of a thousand 

 seeds "Nature doth make but one to bear;" 

 and so it is with the drones in our hives. 

 Their great number is easily explained by 

 the fact that the queen has to go abroad on 

 her marital flight, and that only after a pro- 

 longed and risky journey in the air does the 

 chosen suitor meet her. Nature thus se- 

 cures by an almost invariable law the sur- 

 vival of the fittest. 



As is well known, the drone takes 24 days 

 to develop from the egg to the perfect in- 

 sect. While the egg hatches, in the ordi- 

 nary, in three days, he is fed as a larva for 

 an extra day. He takes three times as long 

 as the queen to spin his cocoon, and con- 

 tinues more than double the time in the 

 nymph stage. His food almost from the 

 first differs. His natal cradle is much larg- 

 er than that of the worker. He is fed all 

 his life, but on a food different from that 

 fed the queen; yet the workers highly pam- 

 per him. His voice is different, and the 

 deep sonorous sound of his flight can never 

 be mistaken for that of either of the others. 

 Having no sting he can not well defend 

 himself, and is, therefore, at the mercy of 

 the smaller females when they wish to evict 

 him. These subtle ladies, however, get rid 

 of him by simply withholding the chyle 

 food, formerly lavishly supplied, when they 

 considered the fate of the hive might hinge 

 on his act. Small though they are, bulky 

 though he is, they are the masters; and 

 when the fit time arrives for sacrificing these 

 now useless intruders they ruthlessly carry 

 out the act without the least compunc- 

 tion. 



The drone was a mystery to the ancients. 

 Why, they pondered, should a class of idlers 

 exist in a community where all others are 

 workers? Why should they be consumers 

 where the workers are all producers? Being 

 the greater bee, why should he be in sub- 

 jection to the smaller? Why should they 

 be so ruthlessly evicted? Were they simply 

 nurses? "They sit on the cells as a hen 

 doth on her eggs," wrote Hill. Were they 

 bees which had lost their stings? Were 

 they captains acting under orders of the 

 king? Were they really a redundancy of 

 nature? Virgil asserted that they brought 

 the seeds of the young from the flowers. 

 Butler came near the truth; but 150 years 

 after. Rusden thought their great work was 

 "sitting on the eggs." Later, Huish held 

 that every egg is visited by the drones in 

 the hive, and dealt with. It was only about 

 a century ago that the researches of Huber 

 and succeeding investigators convinced bee- 

 keepers that the only reason for the drone's 

 existence is to fertilize the queen — which 

 conclusion will never be questioned. 



Banff, Scotland. 



