PHYSIOLOGY. 55 



drones ; and ihis renders it necessary that a large number 

 should be produced in the parent hive. 



As this necessity no longer exists, when the bee is domes- 

 ticated, the production o^so many drones should be dis- 

 couraged. Traps have been invented to destroy them, but 

 it is much better to save the bees the labor and expense of 

 rearing such a host of useless consumers. This can readily 

 be done by the use of my hives. The cells in which the 

 drones are reared, are much larger than those appropriated 

 to the raising of workers. The combs containing them may 

 be taken out, to have their places supplied with worker's 

 cells, and thus the over production of drones may easily be 

 prevented. Some colonies contain so much drone comb as 

 to be nearly worthless. 



I have no doubt that some of my readers will object lb 

 this mode of management as interfering with nature : but let 

 them remember that the bee is not in a state of nature, and 

 that the same objection might be urged against killing off 

 the super-numerary males of our domestic animals. 



In July or August, soon after the swarming season is 

 over, the bees expel the drones from the hive. They some- 

 times sting them, and sometimes gnaw the roots of their 

 wings, so that when driven from the hive, they cannot re- 

 turn. If not treated in either of these summary ways, they 

 are so persecuted and starved, that they soon perish. The 

 hatred of the bees extends even to the young which are 

 still unhatched : they are mercilessly pulled from the cells, 

 and destroyed with the rest. How wonderful that instinct 

 which teaches the bees that there is no longer any occasion 

 for the services of the drones, and which impels them to 

 destroy those members of the colony, which, a short time 

 before, they reared with such devoted attention I 



A colony which neglects to expel its drones at the usual 



