62 
T1IE IIIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
In July or August, or soon after the swarming season 
is over, the bees usually expel the drones from the hive; 
though, when the honey-harvest is very abundant, they 
often allow them to remain much later. They sometimes 
sting them,’ or gnaw the roots of their wings, so that when 
driven from the hive, they cannot return. If not ejected 
in either of these summary ways, they are so persecuted 
and starved, th' o they soon perish. At such times they 
often retreat from the comb, and keep by themselves upon 
the sides or bottom-board of the hive. The hatred of the 
bees extends even to the unhatched young, which are 
mercilessly pulled from the cells and destroyed with the 
rest. How wonderful that instinct which, when there is 
no longer any occasion for their services, impels the bees 
to destroy those members of the colony reared but a short 
time before with such devoted attention ! 
None of the reasons previously assigned seem fully to 
account for the necessity of so many drones. I have 
repeatedly queried, why impregnation might not havg 
taken place in the hive , instead of in the open air. A few 
dozen drones would then have sufficed for the wants of 
any colony, even if it swarmed, as in warm climates, half 
a dozen times, or oftener, in the same season ; and the 
young queens would have incurred no risks byleavmg the 
hive for fecundation. 
For a long time I could not perceive the wisdom of the 
existing arrangement ; although I never doubted that, there 
was a satisfactory reason for this seeming imperfection. 
To have supposed otherwise, would have been highly 
unphilosophical, when we know that with the increase of 
knowledge many mysteries in nature, once inexplicable, 
have been fully cleared up. 
The disposition cherished by many students of nature, 
to reject some of the doctrines of revealed religion, is not 
