Nor bear their grooveless thighs the foodful meal;
On others' toils, in pampered leisure, thrive
The lazy fathers of the industrious hive.
Yet oft, we're told, these seeming idlers share
The pleasing duties of parental care,
With fond attention guard each genial cell,
And watch the embryo, bursting from its shell."
But Dr. Evans had been "told" what was not correct when he sought to dignify drones with the office of "nursing fathers" ("brood bees" as the Germans used to call them), for that task is undertaken by the younger of the working bees. Nor are they even utilised in maintaining warmth, for they are expelled just at a time when warmth is most required. No occupation falls to the lot of the drones in gathering honey, nor have they the means provided them by Nature for assisting in the labours of the hive. They are the progenitors of working bees, and nothing more; so far as is known, that is the only purpose of their short existence.
In a well-populated hive the number of drones is computed at from one to two thousand. "Naturalists," says Huber, "have been extremely embarrassed to account for the number of males in most hives, which seem only a burden to the community, since they appear to fulfil no function. But we now begin to discern the object of Nature in multiplying them to such an extent. As fecundation cannot be accomplished within the hive, and as the queen is obliged to traverse the expanse of the atmosphere, it is requisite that the males should be numerous, that she may have the chance of meeting some one of them in her flight. Were only two or three in each hive there would be little probability of their departure at the same instant with the queen, or that they would meet her in their excursions; and most of the females might thus remain sterile." It is important for the safety of the queen bee that her stay in the air should be as brief as possible, as her large size and slowness of flight render her an easy prey to birds. It is not now thought that the queen always pairs with a drone of the same hive, as Huber seems to have supposed. On the contrary, it would appear that with bees, as with so many other animals, there is a provision against such interbreeding. Mr. John Hunter, in his "Manual of Bee-keeping," speaks of this as amounting to a law, and thus represents the fact as diametrically opposite to Huber's conclusion. But we believe the question to be complicated by another—whether the drones that inhabit a particular hive at any given time are regularly born of the same family with that hive, or whether they are not very often to be viewed as "strangers within the gates." At all events, it appears established that the queen and drones within a hive do watch each other's movements when the former is about taking her nuptial flight, and that the union is sometimes consummated close at hand, though certainly never attempted within the precincts of the hive itself. This last circumstance, which by all accounts is absolutely invariable, would seem to be the extent of the provision, and it is one that in ordinary circumstances would preclude the recurrence of in-and-in breeding. A confirmation of these views is afforded from the interesting experience of Captain von Baldenstein with his one Italian stock maintained by itself for seven years, who found that all this time, with one exception, the young queens produced bastard workers, clearly proving that all but that one were impregnated by the drones of other colonies.
The drone that happens to be the selected husband is by no means so favoured as at first sight might appear, for it is a law of Nature that the bridegroom does not survive the wedding-day. His death, however, is doubtless generally instantaneous, whereas in other case it would probably have been one of torture or starvation. In 1867 the German apiarian Von Klipstein was witness of an instance of the wedding ceremony, when a young queen, who was leading a swarm, became detached from it and settled upon a currant bush, where she was joined by a drone; after a few seconds the two flew away together for three yards and then fell to the ground, when the queen disengaged herself, and the drone was found to be dead. But we learn from the American Bee Journal, of March 1861, that two similar cases were observed in the United States some years earlier than this. The latter of these two agreed with the above in showing the immediate death of the male bee, the rule as to which is also confirmed by a fact noticed by Mr. Langstroth, that if a drone is taken between the fingers and squeezed, as one would squeeze a wasp to cause protrusion of the sting, it will give a crack and shrivel up dead as if struck by lightning. The instance in point was also communicated to the Bee Journal through this gentleman, it having been noticed, on a July afternoon in 1860, by his friend Mr. W. W. Gary, of Coleraine, Massachusetts. The queen was returning from a presumably unsuccessful flight, when a drone met her at about three feet from the hive entrance; a sharp snap was heard almost directly, and the male fell to the ground perfectly dead. The other case was witnessed by the Rev. Mr. Millette, of Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania, and occurred in June 1859, during the process of hiving. A young queen—there were four in the swarm—"was observed on the wing, and in a moment after was seized by a drone. After flying about a rod they both came to the ground in close contact; ... the drone was about departing (having broken loose) ... but after crawling about ... in a very few minutes it expired"—the circumstance being probably quite exceptional in this lapse of minutes, and it is unfortunate that we have no information as to the immediate or subsequent effect upon the queen.