152 The Bee People. 
So you see the drone is not so useless 
as he seems. Indeed, if it were not for 
him, there could be no workers and no 
queens. 
When she has taken her airing, Queen 
Apis goes home, and she never leaves the 
hive alone again. In fact, she never leaves 
it at all, except at the end, when she goes 
off with a swarm. 
As the season wears on, the workers take 
counsel together. Winter is coming, and 
what will become of them all if the supplies 
give out? 
There must be no more mouths to feed 
than necessary. The queen, of course, 
must be taken care of, and so must the 
workers; but there are the drones, per- 
haps hundreds or even thousands of them. 
They are no longer of any use: they bring 
in no honey; they do no work: they only 
endanger the lives of the whole family by 
eating up the winter food, so these little 
brown workers, on the plea of necessity, 
