104 DRONES NOT KILLED BY THE STING. 



them greatly in their daily labour, and consequently, a great 

 quaDtity of honey is lost which would have been amassed 

 during that period. We are therefore of opinion, that the 

 bees should be assisted in this undertaking, by the apiarian 

 watching at the entrance of the hive, and with a small 

 spatula killing every drone which appears. The disciples of 

 Huber cannot object to follow this advice; for as, according 

 to their preceptor, one drone is quite sufficient to fructify a 

 queen for two or three years, no danger can occur to the 

 hive by a gratuitous assistance in the killing of the drones, 

 unless perchance they kill the favourite one, which the 

 queen may have selected as her paramour. 



It is the opinion of some naturalists, that the bee kills the 

 drone by means of his sting ; and in order to account for the 

 circumstance of the bee not leaving his sting in the drone, 

 and consequently committing a suicidal act, they pretend 

 that the scaly cuticle of the drones is so very delicate, that 

 the bees can extract their stings without the usual conse- 

 quence of death. This is really begging the question, for, 

 certainly, no one will dispute the proportion of delicacy or 

 the fineness of texture between the cuticle of the drone and 

 the epidermis of the human frame; but in the many hundred 

 times in which we have witnessed the destruction of the 

 drones, we never yet observed that the bee made use of his 

 sting : we have invariably observed, that they attack the 

 drone at the root of the wing, in the same manner as they 

 do a wasp, or a pillaging bee. In all cases in which we 

 have examined a murdered drone, we have found that the 

 roots of the wings have been, as it were, nibbled away, and 

 which accounts for the wings being almost always in a per- 

 pendicular position. The drone being a perfectly harmless 

 insect, it is unable to make any resistance against the attack 

 of three, four, or five bees ; but we mil suppose that a wasp, 

 m his marauding expeditions, scenting the sweet contents of 

 the hive, dares to encroach upon an apiarian monarchy for the 



