THE DRONE AND HIS STORY 245 
for the slaughter is given. Within each hive a 
curious sobbing outcry begins—a cry that is 
nothing but sheer terror put into sound. The 
drones no longer lie in easy ranks between the 
combs, placidly sleeping off one debauch and 
dreaming of another. They are all awake now, 
and fleeing abjectly for their lives through the 
narrow ways of the bee-city, the workers in hot 
pursuit. 
The deep, vibrant, horror-laden note increases 
hour by hour. As each executioner overtakes her 
victim, she grips him by the base of the wing ; 
and, helped by others all alike infuriate at the 
work, she half drags, half pushes him through the 
throng, until she has him in the light of day, and 
tumbles with him to the ground; he for ever 
fighting and struggling, and uttering that frenzied 
note of fear; she savagely gnawing at the wing 
until it is disabled, and he can never more return 
to the hive. Many of the strongest drones escape 
from their persecutors for the time being, and fly 
away unhurt. But it is only for a few hours. 
Hunger is sure to bring them back to the hive, 
when the waiting guards fall upon them, and maim 
or drive them off once more. It is specially to be 
marked that the bees never sting the drones at 
this great annual feast of carnage. There is that 
much method in the madness which has seized 
upon them ; for, in the rough-and-tumble of such 
a conflict, stings would be plucked out by the 
