SOME STRANGE MARRIAGE-CUSTOMS 287 



the honey made by his sisters, and having no function 

 in Hfe to perform save that of mating, his very existence 

 now is a damning witness against himself. 



When the mother of the hive ceases to maintain the 

 standard of fertihty set by her exacting daughters, she 

 is put to death stealthily, as if in an excess of devotion : 

 she is smothered under their embraces. Towards the 

 drones now under sentence no such consideration is 

 to be shown. When the word goes forth, the slaughter 

 begins, and it gathers in ferocity. It begins in a massacre 

 of the innocents — every helpless larval drone is ruth- 

 lessly dragged from its cot and thrown out of the hive 

 to die : there is now no crime in infanticide, nor in the 

 most gruesome massacre that is presently to follow. 

 The drones, all unsuspecting, are to be tolerated a brief 

 spell longer. The cool, calculating spirit of these un- 

 sexed ones seems to realize that there is even yet a remote 

 possibility that the services of these doomed ones may 

 be wanted. No sooner, however, does it become clear 

 that this chance is past, than the decree of death is made 

 absolute, and the poor drones are suddenly and viciously 

 attacked by half a dozen frenzied spinsters at once. 

 Each tries to bite through the base of the victim's wings, 

 and succeeding in this, he is speedily pushed towards 

 the door of the hive and out into the open, whence 

 return is impossible, so that nothing is left but death 

 by starvation. Some of the victims will escape in the 

 meleey but only for a brief season. Such as find their 

 way, unmaimed, to the open air, are still faced by 

 inevitable death. To remain out is to die of starvation 

 or cold, to return is to fall a prey to the now infuriated 

 guards, who, strongly reinforced, stand at the doorway 

 of the hive to intercept and dispatch these unlucky 



