This week's exchange of messages with Her Royal Honeyness Queen zzzzz'Drom brought a sad tempering of the easy exhilaration that we bees have experienced on this outing.Apparently the Queen had received two bad reports since our last contact. The Southern Enclave, simmering for a long time, has broken into open rebellion, over the Queen's insistance that Humans begin building their dwellings from bodily products, as bees do, according to the natural law of nature.
Quick on the heels of that news, came the report that the Queen's own Hive design was in trouble, and that her new Meadows 15911 project was in serious jeopardy. Armed with this news, the humans had reportedly jeered bees whenever they ventured into the Southern Enclave.
Lu'Ulf's wolf messenger brought back the order for our expedition to proceed at once to the Queen's Hive prototype site at SeaPort Downs. Wolves would be faster, but rumors abound, brought back by Lu'Ulf himself, that in the Southern Enclave, beasts have allied with humans in some cases, and the wolves may no longer be reliable messengers. We were charged to leave the humans behind, and to watch the wolves carefully.
We proceeded at once toward SeaPort Downs, our wings close and tight with nerves, bellies twitching. The archaeological Bees were not prepared to be a policing force, but in the face of the Queen's infallibly wise judgement, how could we do otherwise?
I had no pleasure in leaving the humans behind, as the comeradery of the journey was beginning to de-sensitive them to some of us, and we were well on the way to establishing unwritten rules of cooperation, tiny treaties consisting of human subservient glances, which could have expanded into more formal treaties.
It was a good thing that Queen's Judgment was involved, for surely I would have objected had I not known that her wisdom was infallible. But zzzzz'Drom's instinct for protecting the new hive was unquestioned by any of us. Just a year remains before existing hives begin to become unusable.
From my weeks of travel experience outside of Hive Home, I have learned how reports tend to get overblown when carried over long distances by wolves. In light of this, I comforted my bees with the thought of the Meadows 15911 story's unlikelihood. It was only when we found the burned trench surrounding SeaPort Downs, and mass open graves of RoseMoths , that we began to worry.
Just prior to the discovery, we had stopped for a break, yet some hours' flight still, from SeaPort. We could already scent the harbor, where the big Human ships come in to freight away the SeaPort Hives to their destinations. We all noticed a peculiar RookWeed scent in the air, along with the stench of burned buzzer flesh. (I caution readers that the following scent image is explicit and may be too pungent for young sniffers.)
I sent out cadres of explorers, and they soon returned with startling news:A vast hex cell of clearing was just ahead, surrounding SeaPort Downs, a vegetation moat, if you will, hundreds of yards wide, which had been cut by fire, and sprinkled liberally with RookWeed Pollen.
I rushed as best I could, to see for myself, and found it as they had said. Further exploring uncovered more than a moat. In many locations around the moat, bodies were buried in mass graves. I'll never forget the chilling exchange I had.
"Were the moths burned?"
"Not all sir. But they have all been stung, every last one of them."
"Stung? A bee gave a life for each? But there must be thousands of dead moths!"
The explorer gravely showed me a tiny bee body. "It took the stings of two or three of these little ones."
He held up a stunted yellow and black body, its antennae still wearing wax collectors for enhanced scenting. It should have been working on the new Hive project, but its abdomen was ripped of its stinger like a mere soldier. My throat had a catch in it as I sniffed the brave little waxware engineer.
"MicroBees!" I said. A dull ache warned me that something even worse than the Queen feared may be happening in SeaPort Downs.
With refreshed scents of command filling the air, we launched our flight toward SeaPort Downs, with thoughts of Home, Queen, and lovers filling our hearts, along with a growing dread of the future.
Scented into wax by me, zzzzz'ZOE, the Royal First Cousin, on this day, Nine Twasmire, in the year 15910.
24 April, 1996 -- Expedition Report -- 9 Twasmire, 15910
The Journal of BubbleLand Studies
© Copyright 1993, Local Author Stories
