"I have watched the drones for many years very attentively, and I will freely give you the result. I will tell you, in the first instance, the facts I have seen, and what I have drawn from them. The drones are hatched just before the new swarms rise; very few go off with them. I for a long time thought that none did; but I am free to confess that I was wrong. They do not fly out early in the day, but about two o'clock they go out to take the air, and make a fine buzzing, which joins very prettily with the milder hum of the bees. Many people kill the drones directly they see them; but they are quite wrong, as the bees know best when they have done their duty, and so we may leave to them the unpleasant task of killing them, though they do not do it in the most merciful way.
"Why do the drones stay in the hive all the morning? Most of the bees are then out gathering honey, so the drones have to stay at home to keep up the heat of the hive by their great fat bodies, just as a gadding wife leaves her husband to look after the children, while she is out taking her pleasure."
It does seem a too great excess of provision to furnish two thousand drones out of whom the queen may select her consort. It looks like unusual waste. It leads to a massacre on a larger scale than is necessary.
The average number of excursions made by each bee is probably ten or twelve, over an area of half a mile; but fewer, of course, in proportion to the greater distance of suitable pasture. Kirby calculates that during a good season a hundred pounds of ponderable material is carried by these tiny workers into their hive. He justly observes:—
"What a wonderful idea does this give of the industry and activity of those useful little creatures! and what a lesson do they read to the members of societies that have both reason and religion to guide their exertions for the common good! Adorable is that Great Being who has gifted them with instincts which render them as instructive to us, if we will condescend to listen to them, as they are profitable."
VIII.—BEE ENEMIES.
THE toad is a lazy, ugly-looking enemy of the bee. His capabilities, however, are not equal to his will and wants. He squats under the bee landing-board, and seizes every too heavily laden or wing-weary labourer that accidentally drops. This is really very cruel. The bee that has finished the longest journey, and gone through the hardest work, and borne the heat and brunt of the hot, long summer day, takes a rest on a leaf just before entering the hive, or comes short of the door of his home by an inch, and is seized by the unclean monster and devoured. The only way of getting rid of this unfeeling destroyer, who sits "seeking whom he may devour," is to pay a visit to your hives soon after sunrise and an hour before sunset; and on finding him on his wicked watch, seize him by the hind leg and throw him to as great a distance across your hedge as you well can. But if the "bee-master" be a lady—if I may use the phrase—let her empty on him a snuff-box full of strong snuff, and he will reflect a few days before he returns to his old quarters. I give this prescription to ladies, because they do not like to seize the cold-blooded creature and fling him to a respectable distance. How favoured our Irish bee-masters must be in this matter!—they have no toads. I also wish they had no riots. But troubles must come in some shape. Still, I would rather have toads than Belfast navvies and ship-carpenters, and any day I would prefer being The Times Bee-master to be Mayor of Belfast.