BEES AND WASPS — KILLING DEONES. 167 



bees take courage anew, they then bring up new drones, and 

 prepare them in time for the swarming. This killing of di'ones 

 is distinguished from the regular drone massacre by the fact 

 that the bees then only kill the developed drones, and leave the 

 drone larvae, save when absolute hunger compels their destruc- 

 tion. Not less can it be regarded as a prudent calculation of 

 circumstances when the bees of a hive, brought from our tempe-- 

 rate climate to a more southern country, where the time of col- 

 lecting lasts longer, do not kill the drones in August, as usual, 

 but at a later period, suitable to the new conditions 



But the philosophy of drone-killing is, I think, even 

 more difiScult in the case of the wasps than in that of the 

 bees. For, unlike the bees, whose communities live from 

 year to year, the wasps all perish at the end of autumn, 

 with the exception of a very few fertilised females. As 

 this season of universal calamity approaches, the workers 

 destroy all the larval grubs — a proceeding which, in the 

 opinion of some writers, strikingly exemplifies the bene- 

 ficence of the Deity ! Now, it does not appear to me easy 

 to understand how the presence of such an instinct in this 

 case is to be explained. For, on the one hand, the indi- 

 vidual females which are destined to live through the 

 winter cannot be conspicuously benefited by this slaughter 

 of grubs ; and, on the other hand, the rest of the com- 

 munity is so soon about to perish, that one fails to see of 

 what advantage it can be to it to get rid of the grubs. If 

 the whole human race, with the exception of a few women, 

 were to perish periodically once in a thousand years, the 

 race would profit nothing by destroying, a few months 

 before the end of each millennium, all sick persons, lunatics, 

 and other ' useless mouths.' I have not seen this difficulty 

 with regard to the massacring instinct in wasps mentioned 

 before, and I only mention it now in order to draw atten- 

 tion to the fact that there seems to be a more puzzling 

 problem presented here than in the case of the analogous 

 instinct as exhibited by bees. The only solution which 

 Las suggested itself to my mind is the possibility that in 

 earlier times, or in other climates, wasps may have re- 

 sembled bees in living through the winter, and that the 

 grub-slaying instinct is in them a survival of one which 



