CHAPTER V

_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 antennæ and wings, which are all things that bees have also. But this creature's body was much slenderer than a bee's, its antennæ 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 antennæ 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.

"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 antennæ 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 antennæ. "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.