1 62 BEE-FARMING. 



every instance been only drones. Can we not spare ar 

 few thousands of the male bees out of every hive ? Let it 

 be remembered they gather no honey and make no wax, 

 yet they consume an enormous quantity of the finest 

 virgin honey. If the birds could not in some degree dis- 

 criminate betwixt a drone and a worker, how would the 

 queen escape when flying through the air on her wedding- 

 flight ? She would be gobbled up by some hungry swallow ; 

 thus her life would ingloriously terminate, instead of her 

 becoming the mother of thousands and the honoured head 

 of the community. In birds which after being watched 

 busy catching bees on the wing, then shot, upon examination, 

 of the stomachs, nothing but drones have been detected. 

 Therefore protect the poor birds ; do not yet upon such, 

 slender evidence condemn them as bee-murderers. 



In America the king bird is doubtless very destructive- 

 to the apiaries; he has, however, one redeeming quality,, 

 he drives away the crow from the corn-fields. Mr. Hector 

 St. John took as many as 171 dead bees from the craw of 

 one of these birds. They must have been killed only a 

 very short time, as, upon laying them out like corpses upon 

 a blanket in the sun, fifty-four came to life, licked them- 

 selves clean, then humming their thanks for delivery from 

 death they joyously went back to their homes. Many tales 

 of this kind are told, such as the recovery of flies found 

 in Madeira wine perhaps two or three years old. An in- 

 stance is related byWildman, who states that his informant 

 was a gentleman worthy of credit. He said the Madeira 

 had been brought in bottles from Virginia to London, and 

 that the flies, when exposed to a warm sun for an hour or 

 two, were so completely reanimated as to take wing, thus- 

 putting to the test the truth of the opinion that a fly can- 

 not be drowned. 



Of this adherence to life, advantage has been taken at 

 t];; tirac of deprivation — recourse having been had to im- 



