THE DRONE AND HIS STORY 247 
spring. If the bee-master sees drones about a 
hive, when other colonies have long ago made 
a good riddance of them, he well knows what ails 
the stock. Its queen is old and failing ; and these 
astute amazons have given reprieve to their male- 
kind until a new mother-bee can be raised and 
properly mated. It is a case of mercy to the drones 
tempered with so much justice to themselves that 
the original virtue is largely discounted. 
And where the drones are carried through the 
winter, it is ever a sign that the hive is not only 
without a queen, but never will contrive one, of 
their own race. Yet they know that, in the 
preservation of the drones, they have at least one 
indispensable element for their salvation, and— 
who shall gainsay it of the sovereign honey-bee ?>— 
perhaps they rely on the bee-master to guess their 
plight, and furnish them with another queen, in 
time to save his property from extinction. 
