xX THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
ruthlessly slaughtered, and her place filled by 
another specially raised by the workers to meet 
this contingency during her lifetime and in her 
full view. Drones are bred in plenty, plied with 
the richest provender in the hive, and allowed to 
wanton through their days of insatiate appetite, so 
that no young queen may go forth on her nuptial 
flight unchallenged. But when the last princess 
is happily mated, and safely home again in the 
warm, awaiting cluster, every drone is callously 
done to death, or driven out of the hive to perish. 
If hard times threaten, or the supply of stores is 
arrested, the old and worn-out members of the 
hive are exterminated, breeding is stopped, the 
unborn young are torn from their cradle-cells and 
destroyed, so that there may be as few mouths as 
possible to fill in the lean days to come. The 
signs of dawning prosperity or adversity are 
watched for, and the working population of the 
hive is either increased or checked, just as future 
probabilities seem to indicate. 
But the most bewildering, most uncanny thing 
of all about this bee-republic is the fact that, in it, 
has been successfully solved the problem of the 
balance of the sexes. While all other creatures in 
the universe bring forth their kind, male and female, 
in what seems a haphazard, unpremeditated way, 
