i8 A MANUAL OF BEE-KEEPING. 



flown would not know her way home, and be probably 

 lost. 



Although I have often been conscious that a stock 

 was suffering from the presence of a fertile Worker, only 

 once have I had positive identification of the individual. 

 A correspondent having captured a Worker in the act 

 of ovipositing, forwarded her to me alive — outwardly 

 I could see no difference from an ordinary Worker, 

 but on dissection found eggs in various stages of 

 development. 



The Drones are the males, whose sole office is to fer- 

 tilize the young Queens ; although doubtless they 

 assist in keeping up the temperature of the hive. They 

 are much stouter than either the Queen or the Work- 

 ers, but do not exceed the Queen in length. They 

 have no sting with which to defend themselves, no basket 

 on their legs for pollen, no excretory organs for wax, and 

 no suitable tongue for gathering honey from the 

 flowers. Their voice is a loud sonorous hum, very notice- 

 able when flying. Under ordinary circumstances, they 

 only exist in the summer, when young Queens may be 

 expected to emerge ; and a colony having sent forth its 

 complement of swarms, the Drones are immediately 

 slaughtered by the Workers ; they accomplish this 

 butchery by biting, teasing, and starving their unfortun- 

 ate brothers, for they seem to know that if they use 

 their stings they themselves will die. Often a Drone 

 may be seen with two or more Workers gnawing at his 

 wings and legs ; then, thrown from the hive, he perishes 

 for want of power to rise again. While the massacre is 

 in full progress, the floor of the hive may be found 

 covered with wounded Drones in various stages of 

 starvation, kept there by the Bees until they die or can 

 be thrown out. 



