21 
If by chance a colony of bees should be deficient in the 
number of its drones, the fecundation of the eges would 
not be complete, and the colony would not produce swarms. 
Pingeron advises to take some from a neighbouring swarm. 
They may be caught, passing out of the hive, without dan- 
ger, because they have no sting. They may be put in paper 
cones, and in the evening, by breaking off the pike of the 
cone, and placing them at the entrance of the hive, the — 
drones will creep in, and fecundate the whole of the eggs. 
I had occasion to verify this observation successfully, 
on a swarm of bees which deserted their hive, came a 
long distance, and settled near my experimental apiary, in 
the month of October. I put them into a new box, and fed 
them with honey and oatmeal gruel, during the autumn and 
winter. When they came to me they had no drones, and 
the spring hatch produced none. Notwithstanding, by the 
end of May, the box was filled with comb, and I had good 
reason to expect a considerable deposite of eggs from the 
queen. I recollected the precept of Pingeron, which I 
literally followed, and obtained the most happy result. All 
the eggs were fecundated, and in the month of July, the 
hive produced a very strong swarm. 
Drones are hatched in the spring. They are called forth 
by nature, to fecundate the eggs which are laid the year 
which gives them birth. ‘The object of their mission ac- 
complished, they all perish without exception, massacred 
and dragged out of the hive by the neuters. 
These epochs, the birth and massacre of drones, whether 
the bees be wild or domesticated, take place in all coun- 
tries and in all climates, at the moment when the queens. 
are prepared to commence or terminate laying. This single 
trait in the character of bees, which distinguishes them so 
much from other flies, confutes the theory of modern phi- 
losophers, who have given tables of comparison and iden- 
tity between insects, which essentially differ. 
The drone perishes, because he would be a charge on the 
community, during autumn and winter. But he first fecun- 
dates eggs, which will hatch in the spring, and produce his 
successors. ‘The drones eat much more than the neuters. 
Their provisions would not suffice them through the incle- 
ment season, if they had not the foresight to destroy and 
expel from their colony all insatiate, useless mouths. 
During the life of the drones, if they go abroad to forage 
on flowers and plants, the substances which they collect, 
