174 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
never could detect them engaged in this work upon the 
combs, that they were stung to death by the workers. 
To ascertain how their death was occasioned, he caused 
a table to be glazed, on which he placed six hives, and 
under this table he employed the patient and indefatiga- 
ble Burnens, who was to him instead of eyes, to watch 
their proceedings. On the fourth of July this accurate 
observer saw the massacre going on in all the hives at the 
same time, and attended by the same circumstances. The 
table was crowded with workers, who, apparently in 
great rage, darted upon the drones as soon as they ar- 
rived at the bottom of the hive, seizing them by their an- 
tenne, their legs, and their wings; and killing them by 
violent strokes of their sting, which they generally in- 
serted between the segments of the abdomen. The mo- 
ment this fearful weapon entered their body, the poor 
helpless creatures expanded their wings and expired. 
After this, as if fearful that they were not sufficiently 
dispatched, the bees repeated their strokes, so that they 
often found it difficult to extricate their sting. On the 
following day they were equally busy in the work of 
slaughter; but their fury, their own having perished, 
was chiefly vented upon those drones, which, after hav- 
ing escaped from the neighbouring hives, had sought 
refuge with them. Not content with destroying those 
that were in the perfect state, they attacked also such 
male pupze as were left in their cells; and then drag- 
ging them forth, sucked the fluid from their bodies and 
cast them out of the hive?. 
But though in hives containing a queen perfectly fer-. 
* Huber,i. 195, 
