The Drone i 31 



they show any sluggishness, punish them without mercy. 

 If you deprive a drone of its wings, and then replace it 

 in the hive, it will pull off the wings of the other drones." 



Needless to say, it will not pull off the wings of the other 

 drones if reduced to that unpleasant condition. Neither 

 will it labor, no matter how mercilessly it may be 

 punished. 



After ages of scorn and contumely, it is time for some 

 one to break a lance in the service of the drone. 



It is time for some one to proclaim him for what he is, 

 next to the queen the most important bee in the hive, and 

 to demand that he be recognized as such by the old and 

 the young, by the wise and by the foolish. 



His destiny is a hard one, but he is not ignoble. He 

 merits the crown of martyrdom, though he is the most 

 cheerful martyr imaginable. He is the male bee ; and if 

 in other creatures his sex is pre-eminent, in him the tables 

 are indeed turned, and he finds himself wholly at the mercy 

 of the worker-bee, who has no mercy. 



He is carefully nurtured in infancy, being, like the queen, 

 fed on royal jelly. 



He comes forth an innocent and happy bee, capable of 

 enjoying life, but unfitted to share in the labor of the 

 hive. 



By no fault of his own he has a very short tongue, too 

 short to gather honey from the flowers ; he has also small 

 weak jaws quite incapable of working in wax or performing 

 any other difficult task. He has no wax glands, no honey- 

 sac in which to convey sweets to the hive ; no pollen 

 baskets on his legs, and no well-developed gathering hairs 

 on his body. So far as work is concerned, he is by destiny 

 an aristocrat and suffers the fate of the aristocrat born into 

 a communistic society. 



He is large, being more bulky than the queen, though 



