by the first shock of the sweet.

The drones have the least enviable time of it. Their foothold in the
hive is very precarious. They look like the giants, the lords of the
swarm, but they are really the tools. Their loud, threatening hum has
no sting to back it up, and their size and noise make them only the
more conspicuous marks for the birds. They are all candidates for the
favors of the queen, a fatal felicity that is vouchsafed to but one.
Fatal, I say, for it is a singular fact in the history of bees that the
fecundation of the queen costs the male his life. Yet day after day the
drones go forth, threading the mazes of the air in hopes of meeting her
whom to meet is death. The queen only leaves the hive once, except when
she leads away the swarm, and as she makes no appointment with the
male, but wanders here and there, drones enough are provided to meet
all the contingencies of the case.

One advantage, at least, results from this system of things: there is
no incontinence among the males in this republic!

Toward the close of the season, say in July or August, the fiat goes
forth that the drones must die; there is no further use for them. Then
the poor creatures, how they are huddled and hustled about, trying to
hide in corners and byways! There is no loud, defiant humming now, but
abject fear seizes them. They cower like hunted criminals. I have seen
a dozen or more of them wedge themselves into a small space between the
glass and the comb, where the bees could not get hold of them, or where
they seemed to be overlooked in the general slaughter. They will also
crawl outside and hide under the edges of the hive. But sooner or later
they are all killed or kicked out. The drone makes no resistance,
except to pull back and try to get away; but (putting yourself in his