Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/152

 pendent, capable fellows, far superior to those greedy and lazy spongers the drones of the hive-bee. As soon as they were grown up they promptly left the nest, to forage for themselves and to seek amorous adventure through the last bright weeks of the fleeting summer. They were quite capable of looking after themselves, and it was not for them to loaf about at home and eat up the stores which others had collected.

Bomba's care was now all for her young queens,—who took much longer than the workers or the drones to reach maturity. Each as it came forth from its big cocoon she tended lovingly, and saw it at length fly forth, loaded with honey, never to return. By the time the last young queen had left the nest Bomba was visibly growing old. Worn with her labours, she was weary and bedraggled, and her velvety garb had a somewhat moth-eaten look. She laid a few more worker eggs; and then stopped, as there was no need of raising fresh young bees just to be killed by the autumn frosts. The colony now dwindled apace. Many of the workers, having no more young to tend at home, forsook the nest and revelled away their closing days among the late asters and zinnias and dahlias of the garden. Others, more indolent or more toil-worn, fell to eating up the stored honey in the cells, to crawl forth finally for a last, listless flight, and fall into the grass