DADANT SYSTEM OF BEEKEEPING 31 



drones. But so small a number is not objectionable. It is the 

 rearing of thousands which is expensive and worse than useless. 



It is perhaps necessary to give consideration, in this chapter, 

 to the statement above mentioned, and made by superficial 

 observers, that the drones are useful in- keeping the brood warm. 

 This belief was so common that in the old days, French bee- 

 keepers often called the drones by the name of "couveuses" 

 (setters) ; comparing them to the setting hens of the poultry 

 yard. But alas, the drones are reared at great expense by the 

 bees, at the beginning of the season, at a time when the workers 

 could more profitably nurse other worker-bees. When the drones 

 are hatched and begin to suggest to us the possibility of their 

 usefulness in that way, if a cold spell of weather comes, cutting 

 off the honey supply, the bees begin to drive them away, ex- 

 terminating them without mercy. With the return of warm 

 weather, they again rear a horde of those useless beings, nursing 

 them and coddling them, until the end of the harvest points to 

 them the necessity of again ridding their home of these "idle 

 gluttons." 



So it is very clear to us, as it must be to any impartial 

 observer, that the prevention of drone production, in hives 

 from which we do not wish to breed, is in the line of progress. 

 We therefore make it a rule to examine colonies in early spring, 

 and exchange their drone-combs for comb of worker cells. 

 Comb-foundation is not quite so safe ; as we have seen, in rare 

 instances it is true, the bees build drone-cells over a worker 

 cell foundation. We have been told that bees will even tear 

 down worker-cells to build drone-cells in their place. This we 

 do not believe, for we have made the experiment of furnishing a 

 natural swarm with a hive full of drone comb and found that the 

 bees were incapable of grasping the possibility of tearing it down 

 to secure worker-cells. They slowly and reluctantly narrowed 

 the mouth of the cells to the dimension of worker-cells and the 

 queen laid worker-eggs in them. There is no more probability 

 of their changing worker into drone cells than the reverse. 

 This experiment was also tried by three leading apiarists ot 

 Europe with the same result. They were Messrs, Drory of 



