LOSS OF THE QUEEN. 
225 
He worketh not at all, either at home or abroad, and yet 
spendeth as much as two laborers : you shall never find 
his maw without a drop of the purest nectar. In the heat 
of the day he flieth abroad, aloft and about, and that with 
no small noise, as though he would do some great act ; 
but it is only for his pleasure, and to get him a stomach, 
and then returns he presently to his cheer.” 
It has already been stated (p. 51), that the bee-keepers 
in Aristotle’s time were in the habit of destroying the 
excess of drones. They excluded them from the hive — 
when taking their accustomed airing — by contracting the 
entrance with a kind of basket work. Butler recommends 
a similar trap, which he calls a “ drone-pot .” The arrange- 
ment used in my hives to prevent swarming, will serve 
also to exclude the drones. Towards dark, or early in the 
morning — when clustered, for warmth, in the portico — they 
may be brushed into a vessel of water, and given to 
chickens, which will soon learn to devour them. In ex- 
cluding them from hives having an unimpregnated queen, 
the entrance must be adjusted to let her pass. 
It is interesting to notice the actions of the drones 
when they are excluded from the hive. For a while they 
eagerly search for a wider entrance, or strive to force 
their bulky bodies through the narrow gateway. Finding 
this to be in wain, they solicit honey from the workers, 
and when refreshed, renew their efforts for admission, ex- 
pressing, all the while, with plaintive notes, their deep 
sense of such a cruel exclusion. The bee-keeper, however, 
is deaf to their entreaties ; it is better for him that they 
should stay without, and better for them — if they only 
knew it — to perish by his hands, than to be starved or 
butchered by the unfeeling workers. With movable- 
comb hives, pity and profit may be perfectly reconciled 
10 * 
