BEE CULTURE. 17 
buzzing when on the wing is much louder and differs from 
the others. Their only use is to serve the Queen when on 
her “bridal trip.” 
Not more than one in a thousand is ever privileged to 
perform that duty, but as the Qucen’s life is very valuable, 
and the dangers surrounding her flight are numerous, it is 
necessary to have a sufficient number of them, in order that 
her absence from the hive may not be protracted. After 
mating, she returns to the hive a fertile Queen for life. 
The Drone in the act of copulation loses his life, dying 
instantly. At the approach of the swarming season they are 
Fig. 5.—Head of Drone, magnifjied. 
reared to fertilize the young Queens; after that is accom. 
plished, they are mercilessly destroyed by the Workers. 
Should a colony lose its Queen, the Drones will be 
retained later; instinct teaching them that without the 
Drone, the young Queen would remain unfertilized, and the 
colony soon become extinct. 
THE WORKERS. 
These are undeveloped females, and they do all the work that 
is done in the hive. They secrete the wax, build the comb, 
gather the pollen for the young, and honey for all ; feed and 
rear the brood, and fight all the battles necessary to defend 
the colony. 
Of the three kinds of bees, these are the smallest, but 
constitute the great mass of the population. They possess 
