Nuova; or, The New Bee by Marion Ames Taggart
CHAPTER III
_Nuova as Nurse_
When Nuova had come into this new high space, she looked up and realizedthat one of its side walls was simply the other side of the comb inwhich her nursery cell had been, while the other was that of anothercomb opposite it, just as she had seen that there was another combopposite its other side. Nuova, seeing this, easily understood thatprobably this was the arrangement all through the hive, and that thebroad and long, low, free space running through the whole hive justabove the floor was a space just underneath the lower edges of manygreat vertical combs standing side by side. Which, of course, was true.
Right away, however, Nuova saw that one of the walls above her wasincomplete; it did not reach, along its whole length, from the ceilingclear to the floor, but at one end, the end toward the lighter end ofthe hive, it came down but a little way from the ceiling. Clinging tothis unfinished part of the wall was a great mass of bees, the upperones hanging to the free edge of the wall, but the ones below clingingto them and to each other, thus forming a festoon or curtain of beeshanging down from the lower edge of the incomplete wall. Many bees inthis living curtain were buzzing their wings violently, while otherswere quiet, with thin sheets or plates of some shining, silver-yellowishsubstance forming on the under side of their bodies.
Beneath the lower edge of the bee-curtain there was a broad, free spacebeyond which the vertical wall of another more distant comb appeared. Onthe floor in this open space were gathered many bees, most of whichappeared to be picking up little pieces of the shining, silver-yellowishsubstance that had broken off from the bees in the festoon above, andfallen to the floor.
As this open space was lighter than the space she had come from, Nuovacould see everything quite clearly here, and the activity of all thebees and their concentration on whatever they were doing impressed hervery much. No one so much as spoke to her; no one spoke to any one else;but every one worked away for dear life. It made her feel that she mustget at her own work just as soon as possible.
She glanced up the part of the wall that was all finished, and sawtoward its middle a group of nurse bees, and a lot of open and cappednursery cells. She could even see, sticking out of some of the openones, the comical heads of the babies, each with its mouth regularlyopening and shutting. And then she heard a song, a gentle lullaby sortof song. It was the nurse bees singing as they worked. This is the songthey sang:
We watch beside the cradles When the bee-babies sleep; We guard the shining pantries Where the bee-milk we keep.
And when the countless tiny Bee-mouths open wide, We rush with drink and bee-bread And drop them inside.
Our bread's the daintiest morsel A wee babe could eat; We knead it of soft pollen And flower nectar sweet.
When ends our busy bee-day The nurseries we right, Then wash our countless bee-mites And tuck them in tight.
Just try to feed our family, And swiftly you'll see That never were there nurses So busy as we.
So she started to climb up to them. Just as she had gone a little wayup, however, her attention was called to a very active and apparentlyexcited group of bees crowding about a very different sort of cell fromthe ones that made up all the rest of the comb. This was five or sixtimes as large as any of the others, and not six-sided, but shapedsomething like a pear with its small end down. It did not lie horizontalin the comb, but vertical, or nearly so, and had a rough, thick wall,and was open at its smaller, lower end. Nuova could not see what was init, for she was already as high or higher than it was, as it was nearthe lower edge of the comb, its lower end, indeed, being but a littleway above the floor.
As she hesitated a moment, attracted by the sight of the strange celland the many excited bees about it, most of whom were nurses, she hearda bee, hurrying away from the cell, say to another hurrying toward it:
"How fast the princess is growing!"
This did not enlighten Nuova much, but the feeling inside of her was nowso strong that she must begin work at once that she hurried on up to thenursery cells lying a little way above the curious large cell withouttrying to find out anything about it. Which shows again, of course, howdifferent bees are from us.
When Nuova got to the nursery cells with their hungry babies she wentright to work. She seemed to know just what to do; to go to the pollenand honey cells and drink honey and eat pollen and swallow them, but nottoo far, and then wait a few minutes, and then give this food up again,all properly mixed, through her mouth right into the open mouths of thehungry babies. And she knew just what babies were ready to have theircells capped with wax--with a nice little lump of food stored insidefirst, of course--and how to call some bee with a pellet of wax in itsmouth to do the capping. She understood at once that the shining,silver-yellowish plates on the bodies of the bees in the festoon at theend of the comb were wax, and that the pieces being picked up by otherbees from the floor underneath the festoon were to be used for cappingcells, and for making new cells where the vertical wall of comb wasstill incomplete.
All these things, and whatever other new ones came up in the next fewdays in connection with taking care of the babies, she seemed tounderstand right away, and indeed she seemed to know how to do all herwork without having to reason about it, or to observe and drawconclusions; in fact, without even once really having to think about itat all. And because it was all so simple, and so easy to understand, anextraordinary thing came to pass with Nuova; that is, an extraordinarything for a bee. The thing was that _Nuova got tired of her work_!
Yes, she got tired of it; tired physically, which is not perhaps soextraordinary, for bees sometimes fall dead from being over-tiredphysically; but she also got tired and impatient of the simplicity andmonotony of what she was doing. She got, I suppose we may fairly say,mentally and spiritually tired of it. Which happening marks Nuova as abee of a strange and rare kind: a bee that is--is--well, all I can sayis, a bee that is different. Other bees, if they had known of it, wouldhave called her a "funny" bee, or a "peculiar" bee; or perhaps somethingworse. Indeed, this something worse is just what she was soon called.For Nuova, after a few days of this steady care of babies, one hotafternoon--the hive was so set in the garden that it was quite exposedto the sun--Nuova, I say, one hot afternoon stopped working, and crawledslowly down past the great pear-shaped cell clear to the lower edge ofthe comb and there she sat and simply did nothing!
Pretty soon Uno, one of the nurse bees in Nuova's group, who had alreadyshown herself to have a rather spiteful nature, noticed that Nuova wasnot working, was not, indeed, to be seen anywhere about the nurse cells.So she touched another nurse bee near her, named Due, with her antennaeso as to call her attention, and said in a low voice: "Where is Nuova?"
Due looked around, and not seeing Nuova, said: "Why, where is she?" Thenboth bees touched a third nurse bee, named Tre, with their antennae. Sheturned around and joined them.
"What's the matter?" she said. Then looking at the group of nurses, sheadded: "Where is Nuova?"
"That's it," said Uno and Due together. "Where is Nuova? She isn'there--she has stopped working."
"Exactly," said Tre. "I thought she would come to that--I've beennoticing her lately. She doesn't seem to like to work."
"Whoever heard of such a bee!" exclaimed Uno and Due together.
"Let us find her," said Tre.
So all three started to move around over the comb looking for Nuova.They made wider and wider journeys from the nursery cells, until Uno,who had got down almost to the very bottom of the comb and was quiteclose to Nuova but had not yet seen her, heard a low voice murmuring, "Iam so tired."
Uno turned quickly and saw Nuova. She was sitting with her head hangingdown on her breast, and she looked very tired and dejected. But thataroused no sympathy in Uno, who, together with Due and Tre, had taken astrong dislike to Nuova, feeling in her, some way, a rather different,even a rather superior sort of bee. Nuova was so unusually pretty, forone th
Uno quickly called Due and Tre, and the three stared malevolently atNuova for a moment and then said together, speaking loudly so that theother bees near by could hear: "Well, what a bee! To stop work! Justthink of it!"
Then Uno leaned over her and called to her: "Lazy!"
And Due stepped up to her and said: "Loafer!"
And Tre came up on the other side of her and hissed: "Shirk!"
Then all three, lifting their wings to strike poor Nuova, who had satvery still through all this, shrinking from the vicious bees, calledout: "We'll teach her!" And then they began to strike her all over withtheir strong wings.
It was going pretty badly with Nuova, when an old floor-cleaner namedSaggia stepping up to the group shouldered off the three angry nursebees. Saggia had noticed at other times that Nuova went rather slowlyback and forth between the nursery cells and the food cells, but she hada good heart and thought it was because Nuova was sick, perhaps, forbees often get ill just as we do. She spoke to Nuova rather sharply, butstill in a kindly way.
"Nuova! what are you doing here? You mustn't stop."
"But I am so tired," replied poor Nuova. "Thank you for driving themaway," she added.
"I am so tired," replied poor Nuova]
"Tired, nonsense," said Saggia. "That's nothing. Of course you aretired. We all are. But what difference does that make? Go back to thebabies, and keep on with your work."
"That is what they all say," cried Nuova, bitterly and half angrily."Here am I a full week out of my nursery cell, and I haven't had a bitof rest or fun yet. It is time I began to have some. Doesn't any oneever rest or have a good time?"
Saggia was painfully surprised to hear Nuova talk in this manner. Shebegan to fear that Nuova's tiredness was not just physical tiredness.She answered her therefore in a strongly reproving manner. "Of coursenobody rests, and of course every one has a good time. Look at themall," and she waved an antenna toward the workers at the nursery cells,"don't you see what a good time they are having? It is having a goodtime to be always working; always working for each other and for ourchildren."
"But they aren't our children," Nuova broke in, "yours and mine, thatis, nor anybody's but the Queen's children. She is the mother of themall. And she keeps on having more. And we have to take care of them all,and all the time."
"They _are_ our children," Saggia interrupted, speaking very positivelyand still more reprovingly. "They are the children of the community; thechildren of the race. It is our race we are working for; the childrenof the race. Think of it!"
Nuova made a little face. "Well, I am tired of the race and the race'schildren," she said. "I want some children of my own."
Old Saggia was dreadfully shocked by this. And she was terrified onNuova's account for fear some other bees might have heard her. It was,indeed, about as rebellious a thing as a bee can say.
"Hush, child," said Saggia in a whisper. "You mustn't say such things.You mustn't even think them. Other bees don't. And you must hurry backto your work before the others miss you." She helped Nuova up, and urgedher to begin climbing back up to the nurse cells. "If you are tired oftaking care of the babies you can do something else next week. You willbe old enough then to make wax and build cells or help clean the hive.And then in another week you can go out and gather pollen and nectarfrom the flowers. But go back now to the babies; the other nurses arelooking for you." She urged Nuova along again, and this time Nuovastarted up, but she went very reluctantly and slowly.
"No," she said, "they pay no attention to me. Nobody but you pays anyattention to me, except when I stop working. They never notice me when Iam hard at work."
"Why, of course not," replied Saggia gently. "Why should you be noticedthen? That is what we all do all the time; just keep everlastingly atit. That is what makes the bees such a great people. There is somethingwrong about a bee that doesn't want to work all the time; you mustn't bedifferent from the others. I am afraid you are sick."
All the time she was saying this Saggia was urging Nuova along up thecomb toward the nursery cells, and now they had quite reached the groupof nurses. As Uno, Due, and Tre saw Nuova again they closed in aroundher so as to strike or pinch her. But Saggia kept them off. And Nuovaslipped into her place again in front of a hungry baby.