208 THE FAIRY-LAND OF SCIENCE. 
queen darts at the first she sees, gnaws a hole with 
her jaws, and, thrusting in her sting through the hole 
in the cocoon, kills the young bee while it is still a 
prisoner. She then goes to the next, and the next, 
and never rests till all the young princesses are de- 
stroyed. Then she is contented, for she knows no 
other queen will come to dethrone her. After a few 
days she takes her flight in the air with the drones, and 
comes home to settle down in the hive for the winter. 
Then a very curious scene takes place. The drones 
are no more use, for the queen will not fly out again, 
and these idle bees will never do any work in the 
hive. So the worker-bees begin to kill them, falling 
upon them, and stinging them to death, and as the 
drones have no stings they cannot defend themselves, 
and in a few days there is not a drone, nor even a 
drone-egg, left in the hive. This massacre seems very 
sad to us, since the poor drones have never done any 
harm beyond being hopelessly idle. But it is less sad 
when we know that they could not live many weeks, 
even if they were not attacked, and, with winter 
coming, the bees cannot afford to feed useless mouths, 
so .a quick death is probably happier for them than 
starvation. 
And now all the remaining inhabitants of the hive 
settle down to feeding the young bees and laying in 
the winter's store. It is at this time, after they have 
been toiling and saving, that we come and take their 
honey ; and from a well-stocked hive we may even take 
30 Ibs. without starving the industrious little inhabi- 
tants. But then we must often feed them in return, 
