CHAPTER XII 
THE COMB-BUILDERS 
N the foregoing chapters an attempt has been 
made to show that the honey-bee lives and 
moves and has her being in a world which 
must be actuated by something better than mere 
instinct, in the common usage of the term. To 
the modern biologist—the earnest out-of-door 
student of life under all its manifestations—this 
may appear as a rather obvious and unnecessary 
gilding of gold, and the only question yet un- 
decided may seem to be where in the scale of 
reason the honey-bee is to find her equitable place. 
All bee-lovers must plead guilty to an inveterate 
partizanship, the writer frankly among theirnumber. 
There is no laodiceanism in bee-craft; and, all the 
world over, it may be said that, where a few bee- 
hives have been got together, there is always to 
be found a red-hot enthusiast not far off. The: 
word “freemasonry,” in the English tongue, has 
grown to be a synonym for the truest fraternity ; 
but just as real, and almost as far-reaching, is the 
brotherhood among keepers of bees. No doubt, 
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