INTRODUCTION xxi 



these mysterious hive-people cause their queen- 

 mother to give them either sons or daughters 

 according to the needs of the community. They 

 lead her to the drone-cells, and she forthwith 

 deposits eggs that hatch out infallibly as drones ; 

 and in the combs specially made wherein to rear 

 the aborted females, the workers, the queen is 

 caused to lay eggs that just as assuredly produce 

 only the worker-bee. 



It is the oldest civilisation in the world, this 

 wonderful commonwealth of the bee-people, and 

 it is not unprofitable to examine it in the light 

 of ideas which are at present only flickering up 

 uncertainly on the distant path, but which might 

 well broaden out some day into general confla- 

 gration. It is conceivable that a time existed 

 when the conditions of bee-life were very different 

 from those we see to-day. Bees have drawn 

 together into vast communities, just as men are 

 slowly, but surely, gathering into cities. A time 

 may coAie when individual existence outside the 

 city may be as impracticable for men, as life has 

 become for separate bee-families away from the 

 hive ; and then there may arise a purely masculine 

 dilemma. It may be that once the magnificent 

 drone was of real consequence in domestic affairs. 

 Bee-life may have consisted of numberless small 



