THE DRONE AND HIS STORY 237 



the worker is ever ready with her sting, the queen 

 uses it so rarely that many old experienced bee- 

 keepers of the present time deny her altogether 

 the power of stinging. A much more natural 

 tendency with her is to bite ; and when it comes 

 to the use of the sharp, strong, sidelong jaws, the 

 drone has a more redoubtable equipment than 

 any, although he has apparently lost the will and 

 sense to use it. 



Whatever the drone may have been in far-off 

 ages, the worker-bees have him now well under 

 the iron heel of matriarchal expediency ; and they 

 see to it that he shall be fit only for the one in- 

 dispensable office, although in that regard they 

 exhaust every ingenuity to make him all that his 

 kind should be. It is plain they would do without 

 him altogether if that were possible. As it is, for 

 nine months in the year there are no drones at all, 

 and then only a few hundreds are raised in each 

 hive — the bare minimum that will ensure the suc- 

 cessful mating of the young queens when the 

 summer sunshine calls them to their wooing. It 

 might be supposed that where there are com- 

 paratively so few queens to be fertilised — only 

 two or three at most from each hive, and these 

 only once in a lifetime — that even those drones 

 which are now tolerated are in excess of the 

 number required. But a cardinal principle in bee- 

 life is that the young queens shall choose their 

 mates from another tribe, and so ensure a continual 



