34 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



time breeding goes actively forward, by asserting 

 that the worker-bees immaculately conceive of the 

 drones for the season, their summer impregnation 

 sufficing until the drones reappear in the May of 

 the following year. Thus, without guessing it, he 

 was very near the discovery of one of the most 

 astounding facts in Nature — that the queen-bee of 

 a hive, after a single traffic with a drone, continues 

 to produce fertile eggs for the rest of her life, which 

 may extend to as long as three, or even four, years. 

 Butler's book is rich in the quaint bee-lore of his 

 times. He tells us the queen-bee has under her 

 " subordinate Gouvernours and Leaders. For 

 difference from the rest they beare for their crest 

 a tuft or tossel, in some coloured yellow, in some 

 murrey, in manner of a plume ; whereof some 

 turne downward like an Ostrich-feather, others 

 stand upright like a Hern-top. In less than a 

 quarter of an hour," he assures us, " you may see 

 three or foure of them come forth of a good stall ; 

 but chiefly in Gemini, before their continuall 

 labour have worne these ornaments." And any 

 warm spring or summer morning, if you watch a 

 hive of bees at work, you may chance upon much 

 the same thing. In some flowers, notably the 

 evening primrose, the pollen-grains have a way of 

 clinging together in threads; and these festoons 

 often catch in the antennae of the foraging bees, 

 giving much the same appearance of a plume, or 

 tassel, as Butler saw in his day. 



