PRACTICAL BEEKEEPING 17 
their haste they fly in zig-zag darts and with a clear ringing note. 
Watching the bees thus we may occasionally hear a coarse buz- 
zing note and a larger and more clumsy bee will drop down on the 
alighting board. These are the males or drone bees, and are so 
named because they are bees of leisure, never working in the field 
or in the colony. If it should happen to be about two or three in 
the afternoon of a bright spring day, we may witness a very inter- 
esting exercise which at first, to the novice, may be mistaken for 
the issuing of the proverbial swarm. Suddenly numbers of bees 
will rush out quite excitedly and-with their heads toward the col- 
cny will actively fly in ever increasing semicircles. These are the 
young bees taking their daily flight to gain deftness in the handling 
of their wings, and also to mark the location of the colony, so that 
later they can easily find it when returning from the field with stores, 
for the work of gathering honey and pollen, is done by the older 
bees. At present these young bees are serving an apprenticeship 
in the hives as nurses, and this flight is their daily exercise and 
recreation from their busy life indoors. Their flight lasts usually 
about twenty minutes, and then all is quiet again, except for the 
dull hum of the incoming bees laden with their stores. Occasion- 
ally the monotony may be broken by the excitement of repelling an 
invader in the shape of a bee from another colony, or an intrus- 
ion by some other insect, a wasp or an ant, perhaps. These invad- 
ers are taken care of by the guards already spoken of, and being 
dragged to the edge of the alighting board, are set free. These 
stray bees we call robbers, as they go from hive to hive seeking to 
get admission for the purpose of stealing. They are not unusually 
shiny black, as the coat of hair has been worn off by the many en- 
counters they have experienced. 
If we observe closely we may see a number of dead bees on the 
ground, especially if it is early in the spring, as the death rate of 
old bees is very great at that time of the year. We may happen to 
see a couple of bees come out tugging at a corpse to get it out of the 
colony. Successful in getting a good hold, one of the bees, having 
gotten the burden close to the edge of the alighting board, will rise 
in the air and fly slowly away, dropping its burden some yards from 
the colony, for the bees are very mindful of the cleanliness of their 
habitation. ; 
Getting somewhat bolder, we may come close to the entrance 
