BEES AND WASPS — KILLING DRONES. 
165 
the instincts both of workers and queens are directed. 
And that these instincts are controlled by intelligence is 
suggested, if not proved, by the adaptations which they 
show to special circumstances. Thus, for instance, F. 
Huber smoked a hive so that the queen and older bees 
effected their escape, and took up their quarters a short 
distance away. The bees which remained behind set 
about constructing three royal cells for the purpose of 
rearing a new queen. Huber now carried back the old 
queen and ensconced her in the hive. Immediately the 
bees set about carrying away all the food from the royal 
cells, in order to prevent the larvae contained therein from 
developing into queens. Again, if a strange queen is pre- 
sented to a hive already provided with one, the workers do 
not wait for their own queen to destroy the pretender, but 
themselves sting or smother her to death. When, on the 
other hand, a queen is presented to a hive which is with- 
out one, the bees adopt her, although it is often necessary 
for the bee-master to protect her for a day or two in a 
trellis cage, until her subjects have become acquainted 
with her. When a hive is queenless, the bees stop all 
work, become restless, and make a dull complaining noise. 
This, however, is only the case if there is likewise a total 
absence of royal pupae, and of ordinary pupae under three 
days of age — i.e. the age during which it is possible to 
rear an ordinary larva into a queen. 
As soon as the queen has been fertilised, and the 
services of the drones therefore no longer required, the 
worker bees fall upon their unfortunate and defenceless 
brothers to kill them, either by direct stinging or by 
throwing them out of the hive to perish in the cold. The 
drones’ cells are then torn down, and any remaining drone 
eggs or pupae destroyed. Generally all the drones — which 
may number more than a thousand — are slaughtered in 
I he course of a single day. Evidently the object of this 
7nassacre is that of getting rid of useless mouths ; but 
(here is a more difficult question as to why these useless 
mouths ever came into existence. It has been suggested 
that the enormous disproportion between the present 
number of males and the single fertile female refers to 
