BEES AND WASPS— KILLING DRONES. 165 



the instincts both of workers and queens are directed. 

 And that these instincts are controlled by intelligence is 

 suggested, if not proved, by the adaptations which they 

 show to special circumstances. Thus, for instance, F. 

 Huber smoked a hive so that the queen and older bees 

 effected their escape, and took up their quarters a short 

 distance away. The bees which remained behind set 

 about constructing three royal cells for the purpose of 

 rearing a new queen. Huber now carried back the old 

 queen and ensconced her in the hive. Immediately the 

 bees set about carrying away all the food from the royal 

 cells, in order to prevent the larvae contained therein from 

 developing into queens. Again, if a strange queen is pre- 

 sented to a hive already provided with one, the workers do 

 not wait for their own queen to destroy the pretender, but 

 themselves sting or smother her to death. When, on the 

 other hand, a queen is presented to a hive which is with- 

 out one, the bees adopt her, although it is often necessary 

 for the bee-master to protect her for a day or two in a 

 trellis cage, until her subjects have become acquainted 

 with her. When a hive is queenless, the bees stop all 

 work, become restless, and make a dull complaining noise. 

 This, however, is only the case if there is likewise a total 

 absence of royal pupae, and of ordinary pupae under three 

 days of age — i.e. the age during which it is possible to 

 rear an ordinary larva into a queen. 



As soon as the queen has been fertilised, and the 

 services of the drones therefore no longer required, the 

 worker bees fall upon their unfortunate and defenceless 

 brothers to kill them, either by direct stinging or by 

 throwing them out of the hive to perish in the cold. The 

 drones' cells are then torn down, and any remaining drone 

 eggs or pupae destroyed. Grenerally all the drones — which 

 may number more than a thousand — are slaughtered in 

 the course of a single day. Evidently the object of this 

 massacre is that of getting rid of useless mouths ; but 

 there is a more difficult question as to why these useless 

 mouths ever came into existence. It has been suggested 

 that the enormous disproportion between the present 

 number of males and the single fertile female refers to 



