xviii THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



pair alone of their number — one pair only out 

 of every thirty thousand or so — in order that the 

 rest could devote themselves to ceaseless, sexually 

 unincommoded toil. 



This may be imagined as following on a great 

 discovery, an epoch-making discovery, changing 

 the whole face and future of bee-life — how, by the 

 nursing and feeding of the young grub of the 

 female bee, she could be atrophied into a mere, 

 sexless, over-intellectual labourer, or glorified into 

 a creature lacking, it is true, all initiative and 

 almost all mental power, but possessing a body 

 capable of mothering the whole nation. Here is 

 socialistic political economy carried to its sternest, 

 most logical conclusions. All is sacrificed for the 

 good of the State. The individual is nothing : 

 the race is everything. "Thorough" is the motto 

 of the honey-bee, and she drives every theory 

 home to its last notch. Men are pleased to call 

 themselves bee-masters ; but the best of them can 

 do no more than study the ways of their bees, 

 learn in what directions it is their will to move, 

 and then try to smooth the way for them. The 

 worker-bees collectively are the whole brains in 

 the business, and the bee-keeper is as much the 

 slave of the conditions and systems they have 

 inaugurated as they are themselves; while the 



