Nuova; or, The New Bee

by Marion Ames Taggart

  CHAPTER VII

  _Nuova goes Outside_

  When Nuova felt that she could face again the scene near the cell, sheleft her hiding-place and came slowly out into the open space where shehad left Hero. He was gone. She knew, without looking, that he was nowwith the other drones pressing about the cold, proud Princess. Shelooked rather for her old friends Saggia and Beffa. Though Saggia hadlost all patience with her because she had spoken to the drones, and hadpunished her, and even given her over to Uno, Due, Tre, and the otherbees who disliked her, she still liked Saggia and believed that Saggialiked her.

  So she looked around for them. But they were not in the mass about thePrincess nor in any of the groups which were beginning to take up againthe different kinds of work of the hive.

  Nuova noticed some bees going in and out the entrance hole of the hive,and although she knew, by instinct, that she was still too young toleave the hive, yet that strange driving spirit in her, which wasalways impelling her to do things against bee traditions and custom,urged her to the bright opening. Once there she hesitated. The brilliantsunshine outside was blinding to her eyes, accustomed so far only to thehalf-light of the hive. She had a curious sensation too, half of fear ofthis unknown world outside, half of fascination to plunge recklesslyinto it to see and learn the new things there must be in it, and toescape from the automatic, heartless life of the hive, and the latestand bitterest unhappiness this life had just brought to her.

  As she stood, uncertain, at the edge of the opening, she heard afamiliar humming just outside the opening, and at once stepped out. Shefound herself on a broad platform as wide as the hive and extendingforward for what seemed to her a long distance, but which was in realityonly a few inches. On either side of the platform and beyond it weregrass and flowers and bushes, and still farther away some great trees,all new and wonderful things to her. Above was the blue sky, and sheheard birds twittering, and far away the song of a woman working in thegarden. And it was all very light and fresh and fragrant. Nuova likedit.

  She heard the familiar humming again. She turned her attention to theentrance platform. There were only a few bees on it. A few guards movedeasily and half-lazily around, and a few foraging bees were coming andgoing with loads of pollen and honey or with pollen baskets and honeysacs empty. But suddenly she saw Beffa. It was he who was making thefamiliar humming. With tired, drawn face and with only grimaces forsmiles, he was slowly hopping and humming near the front edge of theplatform. He often came to a standstill to look with fixed gaze out intothe distance. Beffa was a sad bee, for his Queen had gone and he couldnot follow her. Poor Beffa! It made Nuova sad, too, to see him.

  And then she saw Saggia, too. She was at one side of the platform withdustpan and brush, and occasionally stooping over to brush up something.She, too, seemed sad and tired. She looked older than Nuova had seen herlook before. Saggia, like Beffa, every now and then stood quite stilland gazed far away into the garden or sky as if hoping to see againthe old Queen whom they had lost. Saggia and Beffa had come closetogether without noticing each other or Nuova, so occupied with theirown thoughts were they. But soon Saggia noticed Beffa and moved up closeto him.

  "Beffa, you are sad," said Saggia, in a low voice so that only Beffashould hear.

  "Beffa, you are sad," said Saggia]

  Even Beffa did not hear her at first, or, at least, he did not heed her.But when Saggia repeated what she had said, Beffa came out of hisreverie with a jerk, and awkwardly made a little hop and grimace.

  "Sad," said he. "Great Apis forfend. Haven't we a shining new Princessto our hive; a virgin new Princess to wed and be a new Queen to us all?Why should we mourn for an old Queen that's gone? Why be sad with a newQueen to come? Ha-ha," he laughed sardonically and bitterly.

  "Yes, sad," repeated Saggia again, still speaking low and significantly,"when we have just lost our old Queen who liked her jester, Beffa, andeven her old floor-cleaner, Saggia, who neither of them know whetherthe new Queen will like them or not. Oh, sad, sad! Ha-ha!" And shehalf-imitated Beffa's sardonic laugh and his hop and grimace.

  Beffa turned and faced Saggia squarely, surprised to find wise oldSaggia troubled and depressed just as he was. After a long, keen look ather, he made a solemn gesture to the distance, and then a mocking bowtoward the hive entrance.

  "The Queen has passed: long live the Queen!" he exclaimed.

  Several of the guard and forager bees near him heard his cry and calledout after him--

  "The Queen has passed: long live the Queen!"

  But one old guard of testy temper added, speaking rather roughly toBeffa: "What are you doing here? Doesn't the Princess laugh at your oldtricks? Can't you find some new ones?"

  Beffa turned angrily toward the guard, as if to answer sharply, butsuddenly checked himself and began capering and humming. Then he sang ina bitter voice:

  "Let the guards guard, and the jester jest, Let Saggia clean, and the new queen wed, Let all the bees do all they did, For life is doing what we're bid. Oh, life is doing what we're bid. Ha-ha!"

  Saggia felt a little anxious on Beffa's account, for his song seemedbitter, and she saw that the guard was looking both puzzled and sour asshe listened to it. So Saggia spoke to her hurriedly.

  "The odor from our full pantries comes strong from the hives thismorning," she said. "I hope it won't attract the Black Bees."

  "Oh, the Black Bees," said the guard, superiorly. "Let them come. We'llshow them how robbers are treated."

  Just as the guard finished speaking, a commotion began on the other sideof the platform, and Nuova saw a large black-and-yellow-striped creaturewith a long spear lunging fiercely toward the entrance of the hive. Itwas a Yellow Jacket. She knew it at once, because she had heard some ofthe nurse bees one day talking about these fierceblack-and-yellow-banded robbers that sometimes fought their way intothe hive to steal honey.

  The guard near Saggia and Beffa hurried across the platform brandishingher lance. But already three or four other guards had thrown themselveson the intruder and were beating it back, striking it viciously withtheir lances. The Yellow Jacket made a good fight, but the bee Amazonswere too many for it. It was wounded, began to weaken, and soon washustled back off the platform and on through the grass behind a near-bybush.

  The guard who had been talking with Saggia came back proudly to her,still brandishing her long lance.

  "That's the way we do it," she said. "And a Yellow Jacket is strongerthan a Black Bee."

  "Yes," replied Saggia, wagging her old head wisely, "but not strongerthan ten Black Bees, or a hundred, and that is the way _they_ come."

  As Saggia finished speaking, the guards who had driven the Yellow Jacketaway returned boisterously, and joining all the other guards on theplatform, formed in a line, and half-marching, half-dancing, wentthrough some military maneuvers. While they were doing this, another lotof guards came out of the hive, and forming in a line opposite them,also went through the martial dance. At the end of it all the guards whohad been outside marched into the hive, while the new ones remainedoutside on the platform. It was the "relief of the guard."

  All during the guards' dancing and marching, Nuova had stood stillwatching them intently. Neither Saggia nor Beffa had seen her yet. Andshe was afraid to speak to them for fear of being made to go back intothe hive again. She had made up her mind to stay outside. It was all somuch more beautiful and exciting out here. She had decided that shewould not be a nurse or wax-maker or anything else inside the hive anylonger. She wanted to be a forager and be free to go in and out as sheliked, and to fly far out into the garden and spend long, sunshiny hoursthere.

  Just then, however, Saggia caught sight of her. It was, indeed, Beffawho saw her first. He quietly touched Saggia with one of his antennae andwaved the other in Nuova's direction. Saggia hurried over to her,looking anxiously around her to see if any other bees had noticed Nuova.

  "What are you doing out here?" whispered Saggia to her as she reach
edher side. "Who sent you out? It isn't time for a week yet for you tocome outside."

  Saggia wanted to be angry with her, but the sight of Nuova, so sad andforlorn-looking, and with tear-marks still on her face, was too much forher kind heart. And she really loved Nuova very much. Indeed, all thatNuova had done, and what she had said, had made a strange appeal to thewise old bee. She was almost frightened sometimes to feel that down deepin her heart she not only sympathized with much of Nuova's revoltagainst the rigid traditions and automatic life of the bees, but thatshe realized that this stifling of all independent action and allpersonal emotions was not always the way to the highest happiness noreven the wisest conduct for the bees. She shuddered to think thatperhaps she, too, was a "new bee."

  Nuova was half-frightened by Saggia's discovery of her and by her hardwords. But she answered her willfully and defiantly, although with atouch of attractive mischievousness.

  "Nobody sent me out," she said. "I have just decided to be a forager;that's all. While I was in the hive a little while ago a forager came inwith two great loads of pollen in her pollen baskets. She was very tiredand seemed sick. While she was looking around for an empty cell in whichto put her pollen, she suddenly sank down--and--and died."

  Nuova shivered as she said this, and dropped her antennae down over hereyes for a moment.

  "Ah, yes," said Saggia sadly but proudly; "worked herself to death. Thatis the noble death we have. We die in the harness--working for others,working for the hive. The bees know that death well and honor it."

  "They may know it well," broke in Nuova sharply, "but they do not honorit well. Anyway, not by their actions. Nobody paid any attention to thepoor forager when she was staggering along with her load, and none whenshe sank down on the floor and died. Except pretty soon a couple ofcleaners came along and dragged her body away. I suppose they broughtit out here and flung it off the platform somewhere. A noble death, wellhonored, indeed! Well, I don't want that kind. I am going to die out inthe garden, under a flower."

  While Nuova was speaking, Beffa had hopped and hummed his way over tothem, and now he broke in with a song, which he sang as he hopped anddanced about them. This is what he sang:

  "Work, no play; work all day; A useful life; a usual life; The good bee's way, All day, all day. Then die and lie Till Saggia spy The carrion stuff-- A tug; a shove, And the friend you love Is gone to grass: Ha, ha, alas, is gone to grass. A noble life; a halted breath: The epitaph: 'She worked to death.'"

  Both Saggia and Nuova listened to Beffa and watched him till he hadfinished singing. They both saw clearly his own unhappiness and his ownrevolt against the rigor of the bee tradition that demands always thefull sacrifice of the individual for the community. Saggia realized thatBeffa, too, was a "new bee."

  Nuova, in the meanwhile, was looking off again into the beautifulgarden; at the green grass and bushes; the many-colored flowers; theblue sky and warm, bright sunshine over all. She was enchanted. She drewa long breath of relief and happiness. She turned to Saggia.

  "Will they keep me in," she whispered, "if I go back into the hive? Ifthey will, I shan't go," she added positively.

  Saggia looked about again to see if other bees were paying attention tothem. None was.

  "No," she said, speaking in a low voice, "they won't keep you. Theywon't pay any attention to you as long as you keep busy, coming andgoing. You can be a honey-gatherer. The honey-flowers are only a littleway off, there in the garden. But first you must get acquainted with theoutside of the hive and the entrance. Look around. See, we are just bythe side of this big bush, with that long branch hanging over. You cango out a little way from the platform, then turn around and see how thehive looks from there. Then go a little farther and look back again.Then go a little way to one side, and then to the other, and noticeeverything that will help you to find your way back. If you get lost,see if you can't see other honey-gatherers or pollen-foragers flyingwith full loads; they are returning to the hive; follow them. As tocollecting the honey, you will learn that easily; in fact, you will besurprised when you get to the flowers, to find that you already knowhow. Be careful and not get into the poppies that shut up on you, andwatch always for the great-crested bee-bird that swoops down on you,and, peck"--Saggia exaggeratedly imitated a bird's pecking--"and that isthe end. Now, be off for your first flight. But not too far--not for thefirst time."

  Nuova's face shone with eagerness. "Oh, thank you, Saggia, thank you.You are good to me. You are different from the others. Thank you,dearest Saggia."

  Nuova started quickly forward toward the edge of the platform. Just thenBeffa, who had been hopping gently about Nuova and Saggia while theywere talking, now hopped and danced along in front of Nuova, singing:

  "The new bee and the old world; Flowers are there and butterflies; But ugly toads and big bee-birds, If the old bee thinks she knows, The new bee knows she doesn't. Ah, new bee knows the world-old truth, That the old world's ever new."

  Nuova had slowed her steps so that she could hear all of Beffa's littlesong, and as he finished she came up to him and touched him caressinglywith one of her antennae. But Beffa shrank from her caress. It meant somuch to him, and yet he knew it meant so little to her. He knew Nuovaliked him; yes, but he knew that he more than liked Nuova: he loved her.Poor Beffa! Love! A pitiful, deformed drone that could not fly; thatcould never be in the Great Courting Chase! And it was only then thatthe drones loved; and then only a Princess that could be loved. What hefelt was impossible for a bee to feel; bee tradition told him that; andyet, he knew that he did feel this impossible thing.

  "Beffa, you are good to me too," said Nuova to him; "you and Saggia areboth good to me. And you two are the wisest bees in the hive, for youknow that I am not the same as the other bees. No bees are exactly thesame, I believe. We can't be all exactly alike, and we can't all likethe same things, or think the same way, can we? I wish I could be aQueen so that I could have you always for my jester; always by to sayfunny things and wise things."

  Beffa made a grimace--to hide a sob. And he hopped more grotesquely thanever, while he sang:

  "Ah, well, who knows? New things unheard of may be true, For every day the world is new. Ah, well, who knows? Ah, well, who knows?"

  "Good-bye, Beffa," said Nuova. And she stepped to the edge of theplatform, and spread her wings for her first flight, her first plungeinto the outside world of grass and flowers and butterflies andbee-birds. And just then something happened that postponed this flight.