86 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONBT-BEB. 



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 sometimesraisedin 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). 



196. 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 



