The bee lifted its antennae in surprise. Not having eyelids to open nor eyebrows to lift, a surprised bee can only lift its antennae.
"Why, of course, I don't know what my father thinks. I don't know my father. I haven't even seen him. Or if I have seen him with the others in the hive, I haven't known which one was he. I only know he was one of the strongest and best flying bees in the hive or he would never have been able to marry my mother."
The baby, whose eyes had opened very wide as the bee first began to speak, soon recovered herself, for she remembered what her father had written in the report of one of his committees, the Committee on Eugenics, she thought it was. She had read parts of it one day when the nurse had left her for an hour in her father's study.
"Oh, yes, I had forgotten. Only the biggest and strongest bees can be the fathers of the future bees. And that's about all your father does, isn't it; just be your father."
"Yes, we kill them off after mother begins bearing us," answered the bee simply.
"Gracious, what a dreadful thing to do!"
"Why, not at all. They are all pretty old then. And we strong young bees can do the work much better. In fact they couldn't do the work at all. They would only be extra mouths to bring food for, and extra bodies to give space to in the hive. It is far better for the race to get them out of the way," said the bee.
"But your mother; you know her, don't you? And you don't kill her, I hope?" said the baby anxiously.
"Well, I do know her, but she doesn't know me. You see when one does nothing but bear children, and has twenty or thirty thousand of them, and more, all very much alike, she couldn't expect to be much interested in any one of them, or even to know them apart. She only bears us; the nurses take care of us from the moment we are born until we are able to take care of ourselves. We don't kill our mother, anyway as long as she is vigorous and not too old, for it is very economical to have a few carefully selected, tested mothers produce all the children. But doesn't your father write about all of that in his book that tells people how to live like us?"