242 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
neither wax-generating organs, nor leg-pincers to 
deal with wax. His tongue is too short for honey- 
getting. His brain is much smaller than even that 
of the feeble-minded queen. The intricate gland- 
systems, which play so important a réle in the daily 
life of the worker, are either completely atrophied 
in the drone or exist only in an elementary state. 
While it has been the communal will of the hive 
that the worker-bee should develop an amazing 
proficiency of mind and body, the same forces have 
been steadily at work to degrade the male-bee into 
a creature of dependence, gradually training out of 
him all initiative and idea, except in the one direc- 
tion. Just as in the case of the queen and the 
worker, drone and worker-bee seem hardly to 
belong to the same race. 
And yet, for all his frank incapabilities and lack 
of ideals, the drone offers, in one respect, a refresh- 
ing contrast to his sour, stern, duty-worshipping 
sister. He isa life-long, incorrigible optimist. He 
fiddles gaily while the city burns. All his misery 
and mourning would not serve to quench a single 
spark of it; so he eats, drinks, and is merry, with 
the intuition of all drones that Nemesis waits on 
the morrow with something disagreeable. It is 
impossible to study his ways for long without re- 
cognising the spirit of rude jollity and horse-play 
that thoroughly pervades all he does. In and out 
of the hive he blusters, cannoning roughly against 
all he meets, and raising his burly, bullying song 
