8&6 PHYSIOLOGY OF TIIE HONEY-BEE. 
193. It is interesting to notice the actions of the drones 
when they are excluded from the hive. For a while they 
eagerly search for a wider entrance, or strive to force their 
bulky bodies through the narrow gateway. Finding this to 
be in vain, they solicit honey from the workers, and when 
refreshed, renew their efforts for admission, expressing, all 
the while, with plaintive notes, their deep sense of such a 
cruel exclusion. ‘The bee-keeper, however, is deaf to their 
entreaties; it is better for him that they should stay with- 
out, and better for them—if they only knew it—to perish 
by his hands, than to be starved or butchered by the unfeel- 
ing workers. ‘Towards dark, or early in the morning— 
when clustered, for warmth, in the portico—they may be 
brushed into a vessel of water, and given to chickens, which 
will soon learn to devour them. 
194. Drones are sometimes raised in worker-cells (150). 
They are smaller in size, but apparently as perfect as the 
full-size drones, all their organs being well developed. 
For the stages of development of drones, see the com- 
parative table at the end of this chapter (197). 
195. We have repeatedly queried, why impregnation 
might not have taken place in the hive, instead of in the 
open air. A few dozen drones would then have sufficed for 
the wants of any colony, even if it swarmed, as in warm 
climates, half a dozen times, or oftener, in the same season; 
and the young queens would have incurred no risks by 
leaving the hive for fecundation. 
For a long time we could not perceive the wisdom of the 
existing arrangement; although we never doubted that 
there was a satisfactory reason for this seeming imperfec- 
tion. To have supposed otherwise, would have been en- 
tirely unphilosophical, when we know that with the increase 
of knowledge many mysteries in nature, once inexplicable, 
have been fully cleared up. 
‘The disposition cherished by many students of nature, to 
