THE HONEY BEE. 13 



not do so; leave the hive open, and stand on one side; she is 

 almost sure to return in a few minutes. 



26. The Drone. — This is a very large and burly-looking 

 bee. One can easily identify him if we go, about noon, on 

 a fine sunny day between the end of May and the middle 

 of July, to a populous colony. Listening, we hear a tremendous 

 buzzing, and looking at the entrance we see the drones come 

 forth, and, after a great deal of attention has been paid to 

 wiping their antennas with their anterior legs and their jaws, 

 fly away with a regular booming sort of noise ; their life is 

 a life of pleasure, short-lived, it is true. The eyes of the 

 drone are, in point of form, quite distinct from those of either 

 the worker or queen, being much larger, and extending to and 

 quite meeting on top of the head. The thorax and abdomen 

 are very broad, the latter being fringed with a row of hairs 

 at the posterior portion. Their jaws are weaker, 

 and tongue shorter, than the wrorker ; they also, 

 like the queen, have no pollen-baskets. They are 

 stingless. The drone is the male bee, its gene- 

 rative organs being very similar to those of most 

 other insects. It is much longer than the worker, 

 but less than the queen. The queen begins to 

 lay drone eggs from the commencement of May 

 until the middle of July : these, having been 

 hatched, and reared, remain as inmates until their i-/,^ Drone. 

 services — mating with the queen — are no longer 



required ; they are then driven forth by the worker bees, and 

 allowed to perish outside. This takes place from about the 

 middle to the latter end of July ; at this time you will find 

 quite a heap of dead drones underneath the alighting-boards of 

 your hives, where they have died, after repeatedly endeavouring 

 to gain a shelter from which they have been mercilessly expelled 

 by the workers. In the case of a bar-frame hive where swarm- 

 ing has been retarded, the drones will be allowed to live until 

 late in August. 



27. Duties of Drones. — Various surmises have been made 

 as to the duties of drones in a hive, besides the one important 

 one — the fertilisation of the queens. Some have supposed that, 

 being in such large numbers, they were there for the purpose 

 of increasing the temperature, in order to evaporate the honey 

 more expeditiously. We have rempved all the drones from 

 a hive, but have never been able to detect any fall in the 

 temperature. If such is the case, why are not drones raised 

 always before the bulk of the honey-flow sets in? they will be, 

 without doubt, if the space of the hive is restricted, in which 

 case there would be sufficient workers to keep up the temperature ; 

 but by contracting the hive we induce swarming. Hence the 

 necessity of the drones to fertilise the virgin queens which will 



