INSECT LIFE 207 



thanks to the golden combs into which he has 

 generously dipped during the summer, he can exist 

 without food for some time after the expulsion. But 

 that this numbed half-life is utterly worthless seems 

 clear. The poor drone, pampered darling of the 

 hive so long as there was the least chance his 

 services might be needed, after the expulsion stands 

 for all that is superfluous. He winters utterly 

 in vain. 



Most insects that in winged form survive the 

 English whiter are proof against the longest and 

 sharpest spells of frost. The harder the frost, the 

 deeper the sleep of brimstone and tortoise-shell butter- 

 flies; but not less sure their awakening in March. 

 But the hive bee or, say, the honey-bee, as these 

 are wild bees, whose state in winter is identical with 

 that of the apiary is an exception. It is very 

 susceptible to cold; a short exposure to wind and 

 wet in January kills it. The cold has, up to a point, 

 the same effect on bee as on butterfly it numbs 

 to sleep. I have never experimented, but from ob- 

 servation should say that butterfly is numbed quite 

 as soon as bee. Bees are on the wing homing from 

 distant fields of honey when every butterfly is 

 asleep. Yet, though so soon numbed by cold and 

 wet, the butterfly, in a state of coma, can live through 

 several days, possibly weeks, of unkind summer 

 weather ; whilst a few kinds of butterflies, in a deeper 

 coma, can survive the hardest winter. The bee, 



