BEE-MASTERS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 43 



Just before swarming-time, as many as nine, or ten 

 of these are sometimes to be found in one hive. 



The same writer has the inevitable ill word 

 against the drones. These, he says, " are, by all 

 probability and judgement, an idle kind of bees, 

 and wastefull, which have lost their stings, and so 

 being as it were gelded, become idle and great. 

 They hate the bees, and cause them cast the 

 sooner." 



Never did creature come by so bad a name, and 

 so undeservedly, as the luckless drone with these 

 old scribes. Another of them speaks of the drone 

 as "a grosse Hive-Bee without sting, which hath 

 beene alwaies reputed a greedy lozell (and there- 

 fore hee that is quicke at meat and slow at worke 

 is fitted with this title) : for howsoever he brave it 

 with his round velvet cap, his side gowne, his full 

 paunch, and his lowd voice ; yet he is but an idle 

 companion, living by the sweat of others' brows. 

 For he worketh not at all, either at home or 

 abroad, and yet spendeth as much as two labourers : 

 you shall never finde his maw without a good drop 

 of the purest nectar. In the heat of the day he 

 flieth abroad, aloft, and about, and that with no 

 small noise, as though he would doe some great 

 act : but it is onely for his pleasure, and to get 

 him a stomach, and then returns he presently to 

 his cheere." 



But it is among the writings of the old bee- 

 men with a taste for the quack-doctor's art that 



