INTRODUCTION xvii 



honey-bee or perish ? We have still probably a 



few thousand years wherein to think it out, and 



prepare for it ; but unless the world comes to an 



end, or human increasing-and-multiplying comes 



to an end, one earth will eventually become too 



small to hold us. With this thought in mind, a 



study of the honey-bee and the arrangements of 



hive-life, takes on a new interest. Supposing that 



the political economy of a beehive may be taken 



as a foreshadowing of the ultimate human state, 



there is no denying that we get a glimpse into an 



eminently disquieting state of things, at least from 



the masculine point of view. We see matriarchy 



triumphant ; the females holding supreme control 



in the State, and not only initiating all rules of 



public conduct, but designing and carrying through 



all public works. The male is reduced to the one 



indispensable office of sex, and even a single 



exercise of this is vouchsafed only to a few in a 



thousand. But to create the large and permanent 



army of workers necessary in a State such as this, 



and to recruit it wholly from the females, it became 



necessary to revise all rules of life from their 



very foundation. There must have been a great 



renunciation among the bees, male and female 



alike, when the resolve was made to leave the 



whole duty of procreation of their kind to one 



