56 NATURAL HISTORY OP THE HONEt BEE. 



with worker cells, and thus the over production of drones 

 may easily be prevented. 



Some bee keepers vi^ill object to this mode of management 

 as interfering with nature ; but they should remember that 

 the bee is not in a state of nature, and that the same objec- 

 tion might, with equal force, be urged against killing off the 

 supernumerary males of our domestic animals. 



If at the tinrie a new swarm is building their combs, the 

 honey harvest is very abundant, the bees will frequently con- 

 struct an unusual amount of drone combs, in which they then 

 store honey alone. In a state of nature, where the bees, in the 

 hollow of a tree or cleft of a rock, have an abundance of 

 room, this excess of drone comb will, another season, be 

 used for the same purpose, and new worker comb made to 

 meet the enlarged wants of the colony : but in hives of a 

 limited capacity, this cannot be done, and in precisely this 

 way, many stocks are so crowded with drones, as to be of 

 little value to their owner. 



In July or August, or soon after the swarming season is 

 over, the bees usually expel the drones from the hive. 

 They sometimes sting them, or gnaw the roots of their wings, 

 so that when driven from the hive, they cannot return. If 

 not treated in either of these summary ways, they are so 

 persecuted and starved, that tfiey soon perish. At such 

 times they often retreat from the comb, keeping by themselves 

 in large numbers upon the sides or bottom-board of the hive. 

 The hatred of the bees extends even to the young which are 

 still unhatched, which are mercilessly pulled from the cells, 

 and destroyed with the rest. How wonderful that instinct 

 which teaches the bees that there is no longer any occasion 

 for the services of the drones, and which impels them to 

 destroy those members of the colony, which, a short time 

 before, they reared with such devoted attention ! 



