THE DRONE AND HIS STORY 239 
From the very first the drone is nurtured in 
a different way from the worker-bee. The egg is 
laid in a wider and deeper cell ; and during its first 
three days of life the drone-larva is fed with bee- 
milk, probably of a special kind and certainly of 
more generous quantity. After the third day this 
chyle-food is reduced, as is the case with the 
worker-grub ; but while the worker is then given 
only honey, it is certain that the drone-larva 
receives both honey and pollen, and that for a 
full day longer. In all, it takes about twenty-four 
or twenty-five days to produce the perfect drone- 
bee, as against an average twenty-one days for the 
worker. The queen-bee, as has been already seen, 
is developed in much less time than either, little 
more than a fortnight elapsing between the time 
the egg is laid and the time she is ready to gnaw 
her way out of the cell. 
After the drone is hatched, it will be another 
two weeks or so before he makes his first venture 
in the open air. All this time he has the free run 
of the larder, and steadily gorges himself on honey 
when he is not sleeping off the effects of his surfeit 
in some snug, out-of-the-way corner of the hive. 
But honey is not his only, or even his principal, 
food. Throughout his whole life he is constantly 
fed by the house-bees with the rich chyle-food 
given to him as a larva, and it has been proved 
that if this is withheld from him for the space of 
three days he will die of starvation, even in the 
