bee-keeper's manual. 63 



and enduring is their patience on most occasions, in en- 

 deavoring to drive the drones away, without doing them 

 any bodily harm. In such cases, the drones quit their 

 usual abode and take refuge in other hives, where, in 

 turn, they meet with the same treatment ; finding every 

 hive too hot for them, they return to their original 

 homes, when the workers say, if I may be allowed the 

 term, as the old man did to the boy who was in one of 

 his trees stealing apples. — The old man did not wish to 

 injure the lad, if he could get him out of the tree by the 

 use of moderate means, so he threw a few small tufts of 

 grass at him, and told him that it was wrong to steal 

 apples, and desired him to come down, but this, as the 

 story reads, " only made the young sauce-box laugh." — 

 " Well, well," said the old man, " if neither gentle words 

 nor tufts of grass will do, I'll try what virtue there is in 

 stones, ^c." Now the position of these drone^bees is 

 not wholly dissimilar to the above case. The workers 

 wish to get rid of them, indeed, must get rid of them. 

 They at first push or drive them off the floor-board by 

 gentle means ; finding gentle means ineffectual, they say, 

 " let us try what virtue there is in stings." 



The drones, in rushing for shelter from hive to hive, 

 find the best accommodation in those hives in which 

 recent swarms have been placed, and which have not yet 

 been filled with combs. ^In such hives, they can enter at 

 evening when the bees are clustered above, and congre- 

 gate on the floor, or bottom-board, huddled together like 

 a flock of sheep, not daring to venture up into the hive. 

 In this manner many nights are passed during the heat 



