And where the drones are carried through the winter, it is ever a sign that the hive is not only without a queen, but never will contrive one, of their own race. Yet they know that, in the preservation of the drones, they have at least one indispensable element for their salvation, and—who shall gainsay it of the sovereign honey-bee?—perhaps they rely on the bee-master to guess their plight, and furnish them with another queen, in time to save his property from extinction. CHAPTER XV AFTER THE FEAST AS the year grows in the bee-garden, so it goes, with all but imperceptible tread and tread. In southern England, after the seed-hay is down, there is little more for the bees to do but prepare their hives for the coming winter. The queen is slowly weaned from her absorption in egg-laying by a gradual change in food. Day by day she receives less of the mysterious bee-milk which was her urging and inspiration; day after day she finds herself the more constrained to slake her hunger at the open honey-cells with the common crowd. Every day sees fewer bee-children born to the hive, and every day sees more and more of the old workers—worn out with a short six weeks or so of summer toil—pass away in that inexplicable fashion, using, perchance, their last strength of wing to hie them to the traditional graveyard of their kind. What becomes of them all, not the wisest among beemen knows; but it is certain that, as they lived by communal principle, in the same faith they die; and their last act may be the truly collective one—of removing their own bodies out of the way of harm to the cherished State. [Picture: Queen bee in off season, showing that the workers pay her no special attention when she is not required to lay] With the waning months, the population of the hive decreases visibly, and, as their numbers fail, the temper of the bees suffers just as evident a change. Old bee-keepers know by sharp experience that early autumn is a time when vigilance well repays itself. For all life the season of autumn has its peculiar tests and trials of character; and this is especially true with regard to the honey-bee. Each strain of bees has its proclivities, good or bad, which are sure to come to the front at this season. And, more than any, bad qualities will show themselves, now that the rush of the year’s work is over, and the common energy must take its course through an ever shallowing and straitening way. To find rank dishonesty in a creature of so small account in creation as an insect, is rather startling to old-fashioned ideas; but it is nevertheless beyond dispute that some stocks of bees are prone to develop a tendency to housebreaking and robbery of their neighbour’s goods during early autumn, and, in a lesser degree, when the first scanty supply of nectar begins in early spring.