52 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



In July or August, or soon after the swarming season 

 is over, the bees usually expel the drones from the hive ; 

 though, when the honey-harvest is very abundant, they 

 'often allow them to remain much later. They sometimes 

 sting them, or gnaw the roots of their wings, so that when 

 driven from the hive, they cannot return. If not ejected 

 in either of these summary ways, they are so persecuted 

 and starved, th^ o they soon perish. At such times they 

 often retreat from the comb, and keep by themselves upon 

 the sides or bottom-board of the hive. The hatred of the 

 bees extends even to the unhatched young, which, are 

 mercilessly pulled from the cells and destroyed with the 

 rest. How wonderful that instinct which, when there is 

 no longer any occasion for their services, impels the bees 

 to destroy those members of the colony reared but a short 

 time before with such clevoted attention ! 



None of the reasons previously assigned seem fully to 

 account for the necessity of so many drones. I 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 I could not perceive the wisdom of the 

 existing arrangement ; although I never doubted that there 

 was a satisfactory reason for this seeming imperfection. 

 To have supposed otherwise, would have been highly 

 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 natui-e, 

 to reject some of the doctrines of revealed rehgion, is not 



