THE DRONE AND HIS STORY 245 



for the slaughter is given. Within each hive a 

 curious sobbing outcry begins — a cry that is 

 nothing but sheer terror put into sound. The 

 drones no longer lie in easy ranks between the 

 combs, placidly sleeping off one debauch and 

 dreaming of another. They are all awake now, 

 and fleeing abjectly for their lives through the 

 narrow ways of the bee-city, the workers in hot 

 pursuit. 



The deep, vibrant, horror-laden note increases 

 hour by hour. As each executioner overtakes her 

 victim, she grips him by the base of the wing ; 

 and, helped by others all alike infuriate at the 

 work, she half drags, half pushes him through the 

 throng, until she has him in the light of day, and 

 tumbles with him to the ground ; he for ever 

 fighting and struggling, and uttering that frenzied 

 note of fear ; she savagely gnawing at the wing 

 until it is disabled, and he can never more return 

 to the hive. Many of the strongest drones escape 

 from their persecutors for the time being, and fly 

 away unhurt. But it is only for a few hours. 

 Hunger is sure to bring them back to the hive, 

 when the waiting guards fall upon them, and maim 

 or drive them off once more. It is specially to be 

 marked that the bees never sting the drones at 

 this great annual feast of carnage. There is that 

 much method in the madness which has seized 

 upon them ; for, in the rough-and-tumble of such 

 a conflict, stings would be plucked out by the 



