HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 45 



preserved for the sake of the additional heat which 

 they would generate in the hive during winter ; 

 but according to Huber's theory, they are pre- 

 served for the purpose of impregnating a new 

 queen. The lives of the drones are also spared 

 in hives which possess fertile workers only, but 

 no proper queen, and likewise in hives governed 

 by a queen whose impregnation has been retard- 

 ed ; but under any other circumstances the drones 

 all disappear before winter. Not only all that 

 have undergone their full transformations, but 

 every embryo, in whatever period of its existence, 

 shares the same fate. The workers drag them 

 forth from the cells, and after sucking the fluid 

 from their bodies, cast them out of the hive. In 

 all these respects the hive-bees resemble wasps, 

 but with this difference ; among the latter, not 

 only are the males and the male larvae destroyed, 

 but all the workers and their larvae, (and the very 

 combs themselves,) are involved in one indiscrimi- 

 nate ruin, none remaining alive during the winter 

 but the queens, which lie dormant in various holes 

 and corners till the ensuing spring, of course 

 without food, for they store none. The import- 

 ance of destroying these mother wasps in the 

 spring will be noticed in another place. 



Morier in his second journey through Persia 

 (page 100) has recorded a fact, which, though it 



