ORGANS OF THE DRONE. 20Q 



Thorax— worker, but too wide to be normal; small and 

 imperfect wings ; very narrow plantae on hind legs, 

 otherwise like those of worker; Abdomen— flat and 

 wide, carrying imperfect drone organs. No. 3 : Head 

 — drone, short tongue, and eyes meeting at vertex ; 

 Thorax — wide, but of worker above ; first pair of legs 

 those of drone, the rest worker ; Abdomen — like that of 

 drone, but with only six rings. Some such bees as 

 these alive is a desideratum, as their internal structure 

 would aid in the solution of some questions of 

 homology and development. 



Since the queen mates but once, it follows that 

 only an inconsiderable fraction of the drones raised 

 really complete the intended cycle of their being. 

 Colonies of bees, left entirely to their own devices, 

 will often produce in the spring from six to eight 

 thousand of these males, which consume much and 

 yield nothing, when perhaps but one, or at most two, 

 queens raised in that colony will need fertilising. 

 These facts, incorrectly interpreted, in the absence 

 of a knowledge of the beautiful laws by which these 

 matters are regulated, have led to the supposition 

 that some other office was fulfilled by the drone, he, 

 it has been said, being especially intended to maintain 

 the temperature of the stock after the swarm has 

 departed. It is quite fatal to this baseless theory, 

 that drones principally congregate on the honey, and 

 not on the brood cells, and that they often, in great 

 part, leave with the swarm. But, above all that, when 

 the queen has been fertilised, they are frequently 

 killed as useless incumbrances, no longer to be 

 tolerated, and the cooler the weather, as it slackens 



T 



