284 
DRONES 
days; the caps come off in a round piece, 
very much like those from a queen-cell. 
The body of a drone is hardly as long as 
that of a queen, but it is so much thicker 
thru than that of either queen or worker 
that no one will ever mistake him for eith¬ 
er. His two compound eyes are much 
fuller, his head is much thicker, and his 
wings larger. He has no baskets on his 
legs in which to carry pollen, and his 
tongue is so unsuited to the gathering of 
honey from flowers that he might starve to 
death in the midst of a clover field in full 
bloom. 
THE MATING OF QUEEN AND DRONE. 
The young drones are ready to leave 
their hive after they are about two weeks 
old*, and they do this shortly after noon 
of a warm pleasant day. They come out 
with the young bees as they play, and first 
try their wings; but their motions are far 
from being graceful and easy, and they 
frequently tumble about so awkwardly that, 
as they strike against one’s face, he might 
almost think them either drunk or crazy. 
It is not easy to decide how old a drone 
must be to fulfill the sole purpose of his 
existence, the fertilization of the queen, 
but it may be from 25 to 30 days. 
Some facts seem to indicate that drones, 
as well as the queen, may fly long distances 
from the hive—perhaps two miles or more. 
There is now satisfactory evidence that the 
meeting between queens and drones takes 
place not very high up from the ground. 
Several observers have reported seeing this 
meeting not far from the hives, during the 
swarming season. The queens and drones 
sally forth during the middle of the day, or 
afternoon, and in from 15 minutes to an 
hour, or possibly two hours, the queen 
returns with a white appendage attached 
*AGE or sexual maturity op drones. 
By a histological and anatomical study of the 
drone organs and their secretions, as well as by 
other means, Bishop (Bishop, Geo. H., 1920, Fer¬ 
tilization in the Honeybee) found that the drone 
is not sexually mature at the time of emergence, 
but undergoes a further growth period of at least 
nine to twelve days. During this period many 
changes takes place in the drone organs, especially 
up to the sixth day, after which the changes are 
slight. 
F. W. L. Sladen, Apiarist of the Canadian De¬ 
partment of Agriculture, conducted some experi¬ 
ments by carrying virgin queens and young drones 
to an island for mating. He reports that queens 
mated to drones under two weeks of age produce 
a large percentage of infertile eggs, thus confirming 
in a practical way the findings of Bishop. 
to the extremity of her body, that 
microscopic examination shows to be the 
generative organs of the drone. These 
facts have been observed by hundreds of 
beekeepers, and are well authenticated. In 
attempts to have queens fertilized in wire- 
cloth houses the author, after letting the 
queens out, has seen the drones pursue 
them until both vanished from sight. Still 
another fact: If one takes a drone in his 
hand some warm afternoon just as the 
drone has sallied from the hive, and presses 
him in a certain way, he will burst open, 
something like the popping of a grain of 
corn, extruding the very same organ that 
is found attached to the queen, and dying 
instantly. 
Drone bee enlarged four times. 
The manner in which the meeting of the 
drone and queen takes place has been wit¬ 
nessed a great many times; but two state¬ 
ments will suffice to describe the act. 
I have this day witnessed the act of copu¬ 
lation between a queen and a drone. About 
2:30 o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday, 
July 2, I was standing near a fertilizing-box 
filling a feeder when my attention was at¬ 
tracted by an unusual commotion in the way 
of extra loud buzzing, as of drones on the 
wing. I looked and saw a queen rapidly 
flying toward the fertilizing-box, evidently 
her home. She was closely followed by two 
drones, one of which turned and flew off, but 
the other remained in pursuit. They were 
flying not six inches from the ground, and 
