BEE-KEEPER S MANUAL. 45 



liberty of entering different hives with perfect impunity, 

 while a worker enters any hive but its own, at the peril 

 of its life. 



Now, the question is, what are these apparently use- 

 less bees for? Would not our apiaries be generally 

 benefitted, could we banish these lazy drones from our 

 hives ? This may reasonably seem to be the case, to 

 one not acquainted with the natural history of the bee ; 

 but should "we banish these bees from our hives, depopu- 

 lation would speedily follow. 



CAUSE OF THE EXISTENCE OF SO MANY DRONES. 



However mysterious the ways of animate nature may 

 appear, nothing is created in vain. Nature, in order to 

 ensure her legitimate objects of fructification, is ever 

 profiise, often far exceeding the positive requirements of 

 the case, as we may view it; but after all, nature is 

 right and we are wrong. Look, for instance, to the 

 fructifying farina of the tassel of maize, that contains a 

 thousand times the quantity that is necessary to give 

 birth to the ears that brace each stalk around. The 

 captious and precarious winds, that are commissioned 

 to waft this farina to its destiny, are not to be relied 

 upon ; hence the vast superabundance that nature has 

 provided to render fertility sure. 



Not unlike this is the legion of drones that lazily hang 

 around our hives ; and where a thousand exist, nine hun- 

 dred nnd ninety-nine are perfectly useless, save upon the 

 same principle of superabundance, as shown above. 



