In July or August, soon after the swarming season is over, the bees expel the drones from the hive. They sometimes sting them, and sometimes gnaw the roots of their wings, so that when driven from the hive, they cannot return. If not treated in either of these summary ways, they are so persecuted and starved, that they soon perish. The hatred of the bees extends even to the young which are still unhatched: they are mercilessly pulled from the cells, and destroyed with the rest. How wonderful that instinct which teaches the bees that there is no longer any occasion for the services of the drones, and which impels them to destroy those members of the colony, which, a short time before, they reared with such devoted attention! A colony which neglects to expel its drones at the usual season, ought always to be examined. The queen is probably either diseased or dead. In my hives, such an examination may be easily made, the true state of the case ascertained, and the proper remedies at once applied. (See Chapter on the Loss of the Queen.) THE PRODUCTION OF SO MANY DRONES NECESSARY, IN A STATE OF NATURE, TO PREVENT DEGENERACY FROM "IN AND IN BREEDING." I have often been able, by the reasons previously assigned, to account for the necessity of such a large number of drones in a state of nature, to the satisfaction of others, but never fully to my own. I have repeatedly queried, why impregnation might not just as well have been effected _in the hive_, as on the wing, in the open air. Two very obvious and highly important advantages would have resulted from such an arrangement. 1st. A few dozen drones would have amply sufficed for the wants of any colony, even if, (as in tropical climates,) it swarmed half a dozen times or oftener, in the same season. 2d. The young queens would have been exposed to none of those risks which they now incur, in leaving the hive for fecundation. I was unable to show how the existing arrangement is best; although I never doubted that there must be a satisfactory reason for this seeming imperfection. To suppose otherwise, would be highly unphilosophical, since we constantly see, as the circle of our knowledge is enlarged, many mysteries in nature hitherto inexplicable, fully cleared up.