22 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
sumption is that they are by no means rare; but 
such will scarcely happen when the union is con- 
summated remote from the hive, and a_ recent 
instance has been cited in which the pair had 
met from a distance of five miles—the production 
of a mongrel brood in a cottage garden proving 
that a drone of the only Italian colony in the 
district must have come upon the queen though 
at this wide interval of space.* 
“Naturalists,” says Huber, “have been extremely 
embarrassed to account for the number of males in 
most hives, for they seem only a burden on the 
community, since they appear to fulfil no function. 
But we now begin to discern the object of nature 
in multiplying them to such an extent. As fecunda- 
tion cannot be accomplished within the hive, and 
as the queen is obliged to traverse the expanse of 
the atmosphere, it is requisite that the males should 
be numerous, that she may have the chance of 
meeting some one of them. Were only two or 
three in each hive, there would be little probability 
of their departure at the same instant with the 
queen, or that they would meet in their excursions; 
and most of the females might thus remain sterile.” 
Were any doubt to remain on the subject, per- 
haps the annual destruction of the drones by the 
workers throws the most satisfactory light on the 
design of their creation. This process varies in 
point of time, according to circumstances. If we de- 
prive a hive forcibly of its queen, then, according to 
* Cited by the “Renfrewshire Bee Keeper” in the British Bee 
Journal of May, 1877 
