Massacre of Drones. 
411 
respecting the habits and nature of the bee. It is 
remarkable how long writers on natural history were 
content to repeat at second hand, without caring to verify 
by experience, the conjectures of their predecessors. 
The idea of a king bee instead of a queen prevailed at 
a time much later than that of Shakspeare. The function 
of the drone bees was not clearly understood. Shakspeare 
calls them “ lazy yawning drones,” treats them as inter¬ 
lopers and even robbers 
“ Drones suck not eagles’ blood but rob bee-hives.” 
(2 Henry VI., iv. 1, 109.) 
The yearly slaughter of these helpless members of the 
community may well have perplexed early naturalists. 
This “ cruel, not unnatural,” proceeding is thus explained 
by Dr. Ludwig Buchner (Mind in Animals, 1880, p. 214). 
The drones, according to this author— 
“ represent a hereditary peerage, which lets itself be served and fed by 
an industrious working class without directly contributing anything 
to the good of the community; from May to August they lead an 
easy life, devoted to amusement, untouched by care or toil. If, indeed, 
they could foresee the woful fate which awaits them at the end of this 
period, their bliss would be less untroubled. Their great number, 
which far exceeds real necessity, would be a thoroughly incomprehen¬ 
sible and puzzling fact in the otherwise well-ordered bee State, if it 
were not to be regarded as a legacy from the formerly wild and 
uncultivated condition of the bees, in which each bee colony lived 
independently, and partly because of this, partly because of the many 
dangers threatening the drones on their flight, a very great number of 
these was requisite for the secure attainment of the object of their 
existence; to-day, when as a rule many hives stand close together, 
and the care and providence of men ward off dangers, so large a 
number of drones no longer seems necessary.” 
This mistake of nature, however, is corrected by the 
workers, and on the approach of autumn— 
“ the famous massacre of the drones takes place, in which the male- 
aristocracy of the State is offered up for the common good, without 
regard to close family ties, between them and the workers.” 
