110 STATEMENT OF DR. HOW1SON. 



that was stung ran very quickly about with it, but I could 

 not catch the bee to observe how the sting was situated ". 



The same cause generally produces the same effect, and 

 therefore it may be rationally supposed, that if the bee in 

 the act of stinging has been ascertained in any one instance 

 to leave its sting, it would follow as a rational deduction that 

 the act is in perfect conformity with its nature, and that it 

 would take place in every case it which it is called into 

 action. Huber, however, asserts that the act of death is 

 performed entirely by the sting, without its being drawn 

 from the body, an assertion which has no truth for its foun- 

 dation. 



Dr. Howison, in the Transactions of the Caledonian Hor- 

 ticultural Society, says, " killing the drones by the working 

 bees when the breeding season is at an end, is performed in 

 a singular way, and is done by one bee in general. It almost 

 uniformly fixes on the drone at the insertion of the left wing 

 where it tears with its fangs the muscle which moves the 

 wing, so that when thrown from the stand of the hive it cannot 

 rise again, and is usually killed by the cold of the following 

 night. No stinging or other violence is ever used, and 

 although the drone is four times the size of the executioner, no 

 attempt at retaliation is offered." 



With the exception of those passages printed in italics, 

 which are not conformable to truth or experience, Dr. 

 Howison has in the above quotation accurately and justly 

 described the manner in which the bee destroys the drone. 

 Amongst the numerous authors, foreign and English, which 

 we have perused on the natural history of the bee, we do 

 not recollect to have met with any mention of this manner 

 of effecting the death of the drones, but in one anonymous 

 French author. He says, the bees either strangle the drones, 

 or stab them with their stings ; sometimes they content them- 

 selves with simply breaking their wings at the roots, and then 

 leave them to become vagabonds and vagrants on the 



