But the drones do not work. Before winter comes, all the drones are driven from the hive or killed, that they may not eat the honey which they did not gather.
Once free, the larvae seeks shelter somewhere dark and isolated, where by some unknown biological process it is able to quickly mature into an adult drone at an extraordinary rate.
The next year's queens are the ones that will overwinter and all of the current year bees, the workers and the queens and the drones, the males, will all die once the weather gets cold.
However as they mature, Praetorians exude a scent that is different than the rest of the hive which prompts the hive's drones to attack it and chase it away from the hive.
Once fully mature the Praetorian will return and be attacked once again, and either be killed off by the hive or be grudgingly accepted by the Queen after suffering too many casualties amongst her drones.
There is a great number of noblemen among you that are themselves as idle as drones, that subsist on other men's labour, on the labour of their tenants, whom, to raise their revenues, they pare to the quick.