_Nuova sees Bee Moth and gets acquainted with Beffa_
As the crack-fillers kept on singing their monotonous song over and over
while they worked, and as they paid no attention whatever to Nuova, she
turned away after a few minutes of listening to them, and stared around
her.
It was the first time she had been clear up to the roof of the hive and
she saw that here, as at the bottom, there was a low, free space for the
whole length and breadth of the hive. It was rather dark up here, and
very warm and stuffy, for the warm air rising from the body of the hive
could not escape, as the propolis workers had filled all of the crevices
and cracks in the roof and where the great flat roof-board rested on the
vertical sides of the hive.
Nuova felt glad she was not a crack-filler, and turned to go down to the
wax-making group where she belonged, when she saw a curious, dusky-gray
creature, not a bee, although with big eyes and long antennae and wings,
which are all things that bees have also. But this creature's body was
much slenderer than a bee's, its antennae very much longer and slenderer,
and its wings not only longer, but covered over, as was the body, with
myriads of small scales and hairs. These wings were so folded that they
covered all the back and most of the sides of the body and trailed out
beyond the tip of the body. The creature was walking rapidly and
nervously along the broad, upper edge of the comb on which Nuova stood,
and seemed to be quite at home in the dim light of this space just under
the roof.
Nuova stared at the creature a moment, and then began to approach her.
But the creature had stepped quickly over the edge and was now running
rapidly down the face of the comb. In this lighter place Nuova could see
that she was engaged in hiding every here and there small, white eggs
that she seemed to carry somewhere in her body. She would dart nervously
in one direction and then another, hesitating a moment after each swift
movement long enough to drop an egg in an open cell or squeeze it into a
crack in the comb.
Nuova, not being able to catch up with the creature, called loudly to
her a couple of times. "Who are you? What are you doing?" she cried; but
the creature did not reply, but only worked at her egg-hiding the more
rapidly. Nuova called to her again, this time so loudly that the
attention of several bees in the group of nurses was attracted.
The minute they saw the creature, they set up a great shouting and began
racing after her.
"Bee Moth! Bee Moth! After her!" they cried. "Call the soldiers!
Amazons! here! here!"
Nuova was amazed at the uproar, and then she was shocked to see how the
Amazons and all the bees in fact dashed at the poor Bee Moth and began
to tear her literally to pieces. First her long antennae and then her
wings were torn off and brandished in the air victoriously, and then her
delicate body was stung and hacked into bits, and the fragments tossed
down to the floor to be picked up and thrown out of the hive by the
cleaners. And during all this violent scene, which horrified Nuova
because, strange as it may seem, she really did not understand the
reason for it, all the bees kept up the most excited buzzing and
exclaiming.
"The villain!" they cried; "when did she get in? Has she laid any eggs?
How did she get in? Who saw her first? Where did she lay her eggs?"
Some began now to peer about for the eggs, while others continued to
talk and gesticulate.
Uno, who had been standing silent for a moment as if in thought,
suddenly spoke up loudly, while she looked significantly at Nuova.
"Nuova saw her first," she said; "she called to us."
At that several of the bees turned to Nuova.
"Nuova, Nuova, saw her first!" they cried. "Did she lay any eggs? Why
didn't you call us sooner? _Did_ she lay any eggs, we say?"
"Why, yes," Nuova answered innocently, "a good many; all the way from up
there"--indicating the top of the comb--"clear down to--to--" and Nuova
shuddered so she could not finish.
With this the bees burst out into a new, violent excitement, and they
seemed to be very angry with poor Nuova. "Bee Moth laid a lot of eggs!"
they shouted. "Nuova saw her! Nuova let her! The stupid one! The
faithless one! Kill her! Kill her!" And they crowded around Nuova in a
most threatening manner, some trying to strike her, and two or three
Amazons trying to reach her with their lances. Nuova thought her fate
was to be that of Bee Moth's, and it really seemed so for a moment. And
then Saggia was heard calling loudly.
[Illustration: "The stupid one! The faithless one!"]
"A crack! There must be a _crack_! She must have come in through a
crack! She couldn't have come in past the guards at the door."
This distracted the attention of the bees from Nuova, for at once they
all turned toward Saggia and began shouting all together: "A crack!
There's a crack somewhere! Why haven't the crack-fillers found it?"
Then they all began to crowd toward and clamor at the propolis-workers,
who, up on their scaffolding, scowled down on the mob, seemingly
unafraid and unexcited.
"Well," said Fessa roughly, "find the crack and we'll fill it. That's
all we've got to say. Find the crack."
"Yes, that's right," spoke up Saggia loudly. "Some of us hunt for the
crack, and some hunt for the eggs and break them or throw them out.
Every one that isn't found and hatches in the hive means danger for us.
Find them all."
At this the bees all began hunting about for the crack and the eggs.
Every now and then an egg would be found and with a loud shout it would
be seized and thrown down to the floor of the hive. Nuova, disheveled
and still trembling from the fright caused by the attack of the bees on
her, crept down to the floor at the side of the hive just under the
wax-makers, who had paid no attention to all the hubbub. From here she
was looking on at the search for the eggs with astonishment, when
Saggia, who had been looking anxiously about for her, saw her and came
over close to her.
"Go up and get back into your place in the wax-curtain, and they'll
forget all about you," she whispered. "But why didn't you shout out
about the Bee Moth when you first saw her?"
"But why should I?" answered Nuova blankly and rather bitterly. "She was
such a pretty and such an interesting creature."
Saggia raised her antennae in astonishment and despair. "Nuova, you _are_
a funny bee. You are so different. What _is_ the matter with you
anyway? Don't you know--but, of course, for some extraordinary reason
you don't--that your 'pretty and interesting creature' is one of the
most dangerous enemies we have? From any of her eggs that we don't find
and break, there will hatch a horrible little grub that will keep hidden
in the cracks or dark places in the hive, feeding on the wax of the
cells and on the pollen and honey, too, and spinning wherever it goes a
terrible, sticky, silken web that catches our feet and wings and
interferes with our getting around easily. And if there are enough of
the Bee Moth's grubs they spin so much web that finally we can't carry
on our work in the hive at all, and all our babies starve and the Queen
starves, and the whole community goes to ruin. 'Pretty and interesting,'
indeed; she is sneaky and despicable, that's what she is. And if you
ever see another, rush for her at once and call everybody. Being pretty
doesn't necessarily mean being good."
"Yes; but, Saggia," said Nuova slowly, "if her grubs have to have wax
and pollen and honey for food, and if there is nobody but Bee Moth to
get them for them, and she can't, of course, doesn't she rather have to
lay her eggs in a bee-hive where, when her grubby babies hatch out,
there will be enough food for them? And don't they have to spin the web
to keep us bees from killing them as soon as we see them?"
Saggia stared at her; and then, strange as it may seem, even this old
bee began to understand a little that Nuova's mind was a bit different
from that of the other bees in the hive, and that she had a heart that
could be hurt even by the killing of a dangerous enemy of the hive.
However, Saggia contented herself with repeating, "Well, you _are_ a
funny bee!" and then she urged Nuova again to start up the comb to the
group of wax-makers, and went back to see how the search for Bee Moth's
eggs was getting on.
Just as Nuova was about to begin climbing up, she heard a strong,
buzzing sound near her and found that she was almost stumbling over a
bee that was standing in a most odd position, with its head down and
almost touching the floor, and its body lifted up at an angle of forty
or fifty degrees, and all of its wings going like mad, although it was
not, of course, beating its wings to fly, for it remained constantly in
the same position. There were two or three other bees near this one
doing the same thing, and farther away, nearer the hive entrance, were
two or three more.
The wing-buzzing bee nearest Nuova, whose name was Aria, seemed to be
quite vexed with Nuova, for she said to her sharply: "Look out where you
are going, you stupid! Are you blind and deaf?"
Nuova was startled, and rather frightened, too, by the sharp speech, but
her curiosity was even stronger than her fear. "Good gracious!" she
said; "what are you doing?"
"What matter to you what I am doing?" said Aria, in a thick, "buzzy"
voice. "I am doing my work--which is more than you seem to be doing.
Aren't you bee enough yet to know that each of us has her own appointed
work and does it without worrying about what others are doing? If we all
do our work, then the whole community gets on all right. So if you will
look out for your work, I'll look out for mine."
Here Aria buzzed more energetically than ever for a moment without
saying anything. Then she began speaking again, "Still if you have to be
told, you pretty little stupid bee, I'll tell you that I and my
companions are ventilating the hive, and if we should stop to loaf and
moon about like you, you and all the rest of us would suffocate, that's
what you'd do." And she stopped talking. But in a moment she began to
sing a curious little song which was partly made up of just buzzing and
humming, and partly of words. These were the words of her song, in which
all the other ventilating bees joined:
Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz;
Back and forth, back and forth,
Fanning and stirring and driving and churning;
Old air we're forcing forth, new air's returning.
On our heads all the day;
This is the only way
We can keep sweet the hive
And our dear bees alive.
Whirr, whirr, whirr, whirr;
Roundabout, roundabout,
Living fans ceaselessly driving and churning;
Foul air we're forcing forth, fresh air's returning.
Upside down all the day;
Beating our wings away;
So we keep sweet the hive
And our dear bees alive.
While the ventilating bees were singing and Nuova stood idly watching
and listening to them, a small, old drone bee with crumpled-up, that is,
deformed wings, came, half walking and half comically hopping, down the
long aisle between the vertical combs from the back and darker part of
the hive. He was humming a song to himself as he came along. Beffa was
the name of the deformed bee, and he was the jester of the hive, as
could be guessed by his hopping way of walking, and by the words of his
song.
When Nuova heard Beffa singing, she turned toward him, but did not
interrupt him. She was ever so much interested in his appearance, and by
his sort of hopping dance which he kept up all the time he was singing,
and by the song itself, which told her something about him, but not
enough. As he stopped singing, Nuova spoke, speaking to herself at
first, and then to him.
"Oh, what a funny bee," she said. "You _are_ a bee, aren't you?"
Beffa stared at her a moment, then made her a deep, mocking bow and gave
a hop or two. "Yes, pretty one, which is, of course, to say, stupid one,
I be a bee--just as you be, only not just so, for I be doing my work,
which I don't see that you be." Then he hopped comically about, humming
to himself the refrain of his song.
No one, however, paid any attention to him except Nuova, who exclaimed
rather petulantly: "Oh, work, work, work; always that word!"
"Yes," said Beffa, mockingly bowing and hopping about her, "but not
always that work"; imitating grotesquely for a moment Nuova's idle
attitude.
"Do you call that hopping and singing work?" indignantly exclaimed
Nuova. "Why don't you go and nurse babies?"
Beffa, who was again at his hopping and humming, stopped a moment to
stare at her in surprise; then replied, in a sing-song: "I can't, oh, I
can't nurse babies."
"Then make wax," said Nuova.
"I can't, oh, I can't make wax," hummed Beffa.
"Then build a comb, or fill cracks, or clean the floor, or"--and she
pointed to the ventilating bees near them--"ventilate," persisted Nuova.
"I can't," sang again Beffa, "oh, I can't build cells, or fill cracks,
or scrub floors, or--" and he broke off suddenly with a sort of catch in
his voice.
But Nuova blindly persisted. "Well, then, why don't you go out and
gather pollen and bring nectar; out into the sunshine, out into the
garden."
The poor, deformed bee, now angry, indeed, began jumping up and down
violently right in front of Nuova, and then suddenly whirled around,
bringing his back and crumpled wings fairly in her face. "Oh, silly
little pretty, pretty little silly!" he cried; "which is to say, blind
one, stupid one, heartless one, _would_ I like to go out, out into the
warm sunshine, out into the fragrant garden! Would I like to go! Blind,
stupid, brutal one!"
When Nuova saw the poor, crumpled-up, useless wings, she suddenly
understood, and she felt like striking herself in the face as she
realized all the stupid, brutal things she had said. "Oh, you poor, poor
bee!" she cried as she touched Beffa caressingly again and again with
her antennae. "I didn't see; I didn't understand; I am so sorry! Won't
you forgive me? Please?"
Beffa, though partly appeased, was still half angry, and still spoke
bitterly. "Oh, you _do_ understand now! You _do_ understand why I hop
and sing; why I dance for the Queen; and why I do anything I can do when
I can't do other things; can't do what a drone ought to do, fly wide and
high in the Great Courting Chase after the Princess. I am glad you
understand now. But hush, listen!" He whirled around, facing toward the
great pear-shaped cell in the lower center of the comb. "Hark!
Principessa, the new Princess, calls. Hark!"
Beffa and Nuova stood silent and expectant, facing toward the Princess's
cell as did all the other bees. There was a tense excitement everywhere.
Nuova felt that something very important was happening. And then came a
strange sound, first faint and low, then louder and shriller. It was the
piping of the young Princess shut up in her great cell, but ready now to
come out. It sent a shiver of excitement through all the bees.
Ventilators stopped buzzing and wax-makers and comb-builders turned
their faces intently toward the sound, and even the crack-fillers, far
up at the roof, stopped their work and peered down excitedly.
There had come, indeed, one of the most exciting and tense moments that
ever come to a bee community. It was the moment that precedes the birth
of a new royal bee, a Princess who is destined to be the new Queen of
the hive, or to go out from the hive with many of the workers to
establish a new community of her own.
Again came the shrill piping of the Princess in the royal cell. Another
wave of excitement ran over the hive. And again and again the weird
sound came. Suddenly the royal nurses began excitedly to plaster wax on
the outside of the great cell, especially over its mouth.
Beffa whispered to Nuova: "She is trying to work her way out, but they
don't want to let her out yet. See, the drones are coming."
And even as he spoke a gay song was heard, in voices very different from
any that Nuova had yet heard in the hive; and suddenly, as the song grew
louder, there came a half-dancing, half-marching file of
splendid-looking, robust bees, moving spiritedly directly toward the
royal cell. They were a fine-looking lot, these drones, these dandy
drones, and Nuova had a thrill she had never felt before. She gazed at
them entranced.
The drones made a half-circle about the cell of the Princess and lined
up there, strutting and dancing and singing loudly. This is the song
they sang:
We are the courtiers, the beaux of the hive;
Of the dandy drones surely you've heard!
Our wings are a rainbow, our bodies are gold,
To soil them would be most absurd.
No, we never mix up with the common hive stuff,
Neither garner, nor plaster, nor clean;
'Tis superior far to be just what we are,
And do naught but make love to the Queen.