> Worker honey bees, Apis mellifera L., physically pursue and drive drones out of the hive in the late summer and fall months, but the fall discharge of drones is a slow process. Drones persist long after drone brood rearing ceases; “American” bees seem uniform in this regard. Fall drone discharge is speeded up and is more dramatic under starvation conditions, but it still takes many weeks.

Maeterlinck (1901) devoted a chapter in his popular
bee book to the late-summer or fall massacre of
the drone or male honey bees, Apis mellifera L.; 
he wrote about the "wrathful virgins" normally "peaceful
workers, turned into judges and executioners."

We saw no mass slaughter of the drones in any of 
the colonies under observation in Ithaca. 

In Hoffmeister there came a time, in September,
when the "vengeful virgins" did indeed turn on the
unfortunate males and physically remove many of
them. Still, this took place over a period of several
weeks; no colony removed all its drones at any one time.



Morse, Roger A., George E. Strang, and Jan Nowakowski. "Fall death rates of drone honey bees." Journal of Economic Entomology 60.5 (1967): 1198-1202.

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