THE DRONE OR MALE BEES. 19 
pollen about from the male to the female organs 
(from stamens to pistils), when these are situated in 
different flowers or upon different roots. 
Bees know the members of their own colonies—it is 
supposed from a particular smell belonging to each 
hive. If a bee enters a wrong hive it will very 
probably be immediately put to death, and thus when 
the intruder recognises its blunder it becomes flurried 
and seeks to escape—an act which only serves all 
the more to attract attention to its delinquency. 
But during the gathering season, when stores are 
plenteous, there is much more of a ‘communism of 
dwellings,” and a strange bee bringing in a load and 
depositing it without scruple, is usually admitted 
without seruple too. 
We might here allude to a prevalent error as to any 
inherent difference, local or otherwise, in the 
characteristics of the domestic honey-bee. When we 
hear it said that some are ‘better workers” than 
others, all that ought to be understood is, that the 
former have the advantage of being under favourable 
circumstances as to locality or season, with a fertile 
queen, and an abundant population; for without these 
essentials, every operation goes on sluggishly, and 
prosperity becomes hopeless.* 
THE DRONE OR MALE BEES 
Are computed in the early part of the summer at one 
to two thousand, and upwards, in a stock-hive; but 
* Of course this paragraph has no reference to the debated question 
as to the superiority of Ttalian or other foreign varieties. 
c2 
