_Nuova's First Experiences_
It was truly a remarkable sight. She found that she was part way up a
vertical wall or comb of waxen cells, each of six sides and all lying
horizontally in the wall. This wall of cells towered far above her even
to the very roof of the hive, and below her it stretched away down to
the floor. Facing it towered another similar wall of cells, and there
was but little more space between the two than was needed for the free
movement of the scores, aye, even hundreds of bees that were clambering
about over the opposite faces of the walls.
In each wall some of the cells were open and some capped over. In the
open ones were either baby bees lying on their stomachs with their heads
near the opening of the cells, and their mouths opening and shutting in
a most comical way, or there was some pollen or honey; or there was
nothing at all. The cells with babies in them were those in the middle
part of the wall, while around these were the food cells. Near the open
nursery cells were many capped ones, and Nuova saw that some of these
caps were being gnawed through from the inside. She knew what that
meant; she had just been doing that herself. But also near the open and
half-filled pollen and honey cells were other capped ones, and Nuova
guessed, and quite rightly, that these were filled and sealed-up honey
cells. The open pollen cells were pretty to look at because the pollen
in them was of different colors, yellow, orange, red, etc., and they
made a sort of uneven but attractive color-pattern on the face of the
great vertical wall.
Nuova was a little dizzy at first, with looking up and down the towering
wall, and she had to hang on tightly to keep from falling. But she soon
grew accustomed to the great heights above and below her, and even began
to feel quite at home in her peculiar situation. A pang of hunger came
to her as she saw a bee walk up to an open honey cell and take a long
drink. She started to walk toward the same cell, when she felt a tug at
one of her wings, and heard an impatient voice, evidently addressing
her.
"Here, wait a minute; we haven't got you clean yet; and your wings
aren't half dry. Don't be in a hurry!"
Nuova was startled; remember, it was the first bee-talking, or any kind
of talking, she had ever heard. Yet she understood it perfectly, and
understood at once, too, just what was going on. For as she turned her
head to see who was speaking, she saw that two nurse bees were most
industriously cleaning her body all over, and unfolding and smoothing
out her wings, so that they would dry rapidly, and dry all properly
spread out. Sometimes young bees do not get their wings properly spread
before they dry, and then their wings are crumpled up and useless all
through their lives.
Nuova had, indeed, for some time rather vaguely felt this gentle
cleaning and wing-spreading operation going on, but at first she had
felt so dizzy and faint, and then when she felt better had become so
intent on looking up and down the two great walls of wax, with their
various cells and the many active bees moving about over them, that she
had paid no attention to the gentle rubbing and pulling and stretching.
Indeed, it was done so gently that unless she had started to walk away,
or had accidentally looked around, she might not have known that it was
going on at all. It was a performance much like that a just-born kitten
goes through at the hands, or rather tongue, of its mother. The pollen
and honey, put into her cell when it was capped, had, of course, rather
soiled Nuova's body and much of her hair was stuck together by it. So
like every young bee, just come from its nursery cell, she needed a good
cleaning. And she was getting it.
Without thinking twice about it Nuova did a very surprising thing. Or
rather it was not surprising for a bee to do, but it would have been if
one of us, just born, as it were, and without any teaching or practice
or chance of hearing any one else first, should do it. For we always
call surprising, in bees or other creatures, what would be surprising in
us, which is a rather silly way of judging things, but one we are all
very much given to. As we think we are the most important kind of
creatures on earth--as certainly we are, to ourselves--we think our ways
of doing things are the usual or normal or even best ways, and all
other ways "surprising." But we shall find, the more we learn about
Nuova, that bees have their own manner of life and ways of doing things,
and one of the most important many differences between their ways and
our ways is that they know so many things right off without any learning
or practice or imitating of others. They are born knowing how; they do
not have to be taught.
For example, the surprising thing that Nuova did right away, without
thinking twice about it, was to begin talking to the two nurse bees who
were cleaning her. What Nuova said, and what was said to her in return,
is of no particular interest to us. It was simply commonplace talk, for
Nuova's coming out of her cell, her first dizziness, the high walls of
cells, the many bees moving about, the spreading-out of Nuova's wings
and cleaning her body, and even Nuova's ability to understand things
about her and to begin talking right away--all these were taken for
granted in the hive as the most usual things in the world, which
therefore needed no special exclaiming or talking about. In fact Nuova
felt already that, as soon as she was properly clean and dry, she must
join the other active bees, who were all busy with the different kinds
of work they were doing, and begin work herself. And she felt that she
knew just what this first work for her should be. It should be the work
of a nurse. And the nurse bees cleaning her seemed to take this for
granted too. For one of them soon said:
"I think you had better begin on the other side of the comb; there are
enough of us on this side already."
Nuova looked up and down the great comb and then to right and left. The
nurse noted this, and added:
"You can get around by going either to the top or the bottom, or to
either end."
Nuova thanked her, and decided to crawl down to the bottom, for she
could see, far down there, a number of bees moving about industriously
cleaning the floor and some others that stood still, apparently on their
heads, and kept their wings buzzing like mad. She was not quite sure
what this performance meant; and the floor-cleaning, too, seemed a
little curious. The fact is that, although bees do seem to know right
off about things, they know these things one at a time, as it were; that
is, when it is time for them to do a thing, they know pretty well,
without any telling, how to do it, but they do not seem to know about
other things at the same time. They seem to know things only as the time
comes for each special thing to be done. Nuova seemed to know that she
should begin working as a nurse, and to know how to do the work, for as
soon as she started she did just about as well as any of the nurses, but
floor-cleaning, and standing on one's head and fanning one's wings like
mad, were not things she knew about yet.
[Illustration: Industriously cleaning the floor]
She worked her way carefully down to the bottom of the comb and found
herself in a very busy place indeed. There was a free place under this
comb and under the one opposite to it as well. When she looked under the
comb which she had just walked down, she saw a great, low-ceilinged
place stretching away in all directions, rather dim and getting darker
the farther away it extended, except in one direction. In this
direction, however, it was lighter, and the farther the distance the
lighter it was. From this lightest part many bees were hurrying toward
her with great loads of vari-colored pollen in their pollen baskets, or
with their honey sacs filled to overflowing with fresh nectar. They
hurried on, paying no attention to any one, and disappeared one by one
by climbing up and out of sight, except the few that climbed up the face
of either of the combs that towered just over her. These bees she could
still watch, and she could see that they carried their loads far up to
the open food cells into which they emptied the food they had brought.
Also she saw other bees, without loads, hurrying along the floor toward
the light, and she had a wonderful thrill as she saw them, and something
within her urged her to run with them toward the distant light;
something inside her that sang of sunshine, blue sky, green grass and
bushes, and many-hued fragrant flowers. But something else, even
stronger, within her, told her not to go; that her work awaited her
close at hand; that she must nurse bee-babies here in the dimly lighted
hive.
So she turned away from the alluring light with only a glance at the
floor-cleaners and the silly bees on their heads with their wings going
like mad. So strong within her had grown the feeling that there was just
one thing for her now, that she walked under the broad, lower edge of
the comb from whose high wall she had descended and came into the bottom
of another high space between two other towering walls of waxen cells.