The Massacre of the Males

Before the bewildered parasites are able to realise that the happy laws of the city have crumbled, dragging down in most inconceivable fashion their own plentiful destiny, each one is assailed by three or four envoys of justice; and these vigorously proceed to cut off his wings, saw through the petiole that connects the abdomen with the thorax, amputate the feverish antennae, and seek an opening between the rings of his cuirass through which to pass their sword.

Every autumn the hive turns on its drones. Maeterlinck, a playwright, wrote the eviction as an execution.

Source: Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee, trans. Alfred Sutro (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1901), Book VII, "The Massacre of the Males," sec. 95. Text: Project Gutenberg. Public domain in the US. Pairs with: Swords: Ten of Swords, or Major Arcana: Justice A note from 2026: Workers mostly push the drones out and let them starve rather than cutting them apart. The eviction follows the autumn nectar shortage, and the "envoys of justice" are poetry.

Public domain in the United States.