DRONES. 121 



WHY SO MANY DRONES ARE PRODUCED. 



If each stock of bees produced only one drone during 

 the season, the chances are very much against the queen 

 being able to meet this one in the air when she sallies out 

 to meet her mate; and, if her Majesty was thus compelled 

 to go out day by day in succession for a lengthened period, 

 very likely she would be gobbled up by some hungry bird 

 in search of a •meal, or be destroyed in some other way — 

 to say the least, her life would, be jeopardised. But 

 thousands of drones are hatched in most hives, so that the 

 queen is seldom compelled to make more than one flight; 

 for at the time she flies abroad there are scores if not 

 hundreds of males buzzing here and there in the vicinity 

 of the apiary. Thus impregnation takes place in the 

 majority of instances on her first flight from the hive. 



STRANGE THEORIES RESPECTING DRONES. 



Many strange theories have been given to the world 

 by professional apiarians which have no foundation in fact, 

 such as the following: It has been asserted they are pro- 

 duced to fertilise the eggs as fast as the queen deposits 

 them in the cells; others state they are nurses, or prepare 

 the food for and feed the larvae; others declare they sit 

 upon the eggs and hatch them like birds; whereas others, 

 and these latter have been a very numerous class, believe 

 they are produced for the purpose of keeping up the tem- 

 perature in the hive. It seems never to have struck the 

 minds of these writers that the queen lays her eggs long 

 before any drones make their appearance in the apiary in 

 the early part of the year. Who or what fertilised these? 



