BEES AND WASPS — KILLING DKONES. 
167 
bees take courage anew, they then bring up new drones, and 
prepare them in time for the swarming. This killing of drones 
is distinguished from the regular drone massacre by the fact 
that the bees then only kill the developed drones, and leave the 
drone larvae, save when absolute hunger compels their destruc- 
tion. Not less can it be regarded as a prudent calculation of 
circumstances when the bees of a hive, brought from our tempe- 
rate climate to a more southern country, where the time of col- 
lecting lasts longer, do not kill the drones in August, as usual, 
but at a later period, suitable to the new conditions. 
But the philosophy of drone-killing is, I think, even 
more difficult in the case of the wasps than in that of the 
bees. For, unlike the bees, whose communities live from 
year to year, the wasps all perish at the end of autumn, 
with the exception of a very few fertilised females. As 
this season of universal calamity approaches, the workers 
destroy all the larval grubs — a proceeding which, in the 
opinion of some writers, strikingly exemplifies the bene- 
ficence of the Deity ! Now, it does not appear to me easy 
to understand how the presence of such an instinct in this 
case is to be explained. For, on\the one hand, tbe indi- 
vidual females which are destined to live through the 
winter cannot be conspicuously benefited by this slaughter 
of grubs ; and, on the other hand, the rest of the com- 
munity is so soon about to perish, that one fails to see of 
what advantage it can be to it to get rid of the grubs. If 
the whole human race, with the exception of a few. women, 
were to perish periodically once in a thousand years, the 
race would profit nothing by destroying, a few months 
before the end of each millennium, all sick persons, lunatics, 
and other 6 useless mouths.’ I have not seen this difficulty 
with regard to the massacring instinct in wasps mentioned 
before, and I only mention it now in order to draw atten- 
tion to the fact that there seems to be a more puzzling 
problem presented here than in the case of the analogous 
instinct as exhibited by bees. The only solution wliich 
has suggested itself to my mind is the possibility that in 
earlier times, or in other climates, wasps may have re- 
sembled bees in living through the winter, and that the 
grub-slaying instinct is in them a survival of one which 
