8 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



one pound of comb, to say nothing of the time that 

 is lost. Hence the importance, in an economical 

 point of view, of a recent device by which the honey 

 is extracted and the comb returned intact to the bees. 

 But honey without the comb is the perfume without 

 the rose, — it is sweet merely, and soon degenerates 

 into candy. Half the delectableness is in breaking 

 down these frail and exquisite walls yourself, and 

 tasting the nectar before it has lost its freshness by 

 contact with the air. Then the comb is a sort of 

 shield or foil that prevents the tongue from being 

 overwhelmed by the first shock of the sweet. 



The drones have the least enviable time of it. 

 Their foothold in the hive is very precarious. They 

 look like the giants, the lords of the swarm, but 

 they are really the tools. Their loud, threatening 

 hum has no sting to back it up, and their size and 

 noise make them only the more conspicuous marks 

 for the birds. They are all candidates for the favors 

 of the queen, a fatal felicity that is vouchsafed to but 

 one. Fatal, I say, for it is a singular fact in the 

 history of bees that the fecundation of the queen 

 costs the male his life. Yet day after day the 

 drones go forth, threading the mazes of the air in 

 hopes of meeting her whom to meet is death. The 

 queen only leaves the hive once, except when she 

 leads away the swarm, and as she makes no appoint- 

 ment with the male, but wanders here and there, 

 drones enough are provided to meet all the contin- 

 gencies of the case. 



One advantage, at least, results from this system 



