A Sting in the Tail By Bob Pearson
Honey Day
When Tallis emerged from his grub like state, it was the greatest day in the history of the hive. The cheering crowds and the bright bunting festooning the nursery quarters were not, however, to celebrate the arrival of yet another bee to the colony, but rather to mark Honey Day!
Honey Day was the one day in the bee calendar year when workers, soldiers and drones had a holiday. All citizens, young and old were allowed a sip of Royal Jelly, a delicacy normally reserved solely for the Queen of the hive. Moreover the treat was traditionally served by the monarch.
Tallis took his turn in the queue. What a sight! The bright, golden, syrupy liquid glistened in the sunshine. What a taste! A wonderful sip of nectar rich honey, a mouthful of sweet deliciousness.
There and then Tallis decided the best career in the world would be that of safeguarding the hive’s treasure and protecting the Queen. Just a glimpse of Queen Beetrix was enough for the lowly bee, he determined to learn the ways of soldiering and enlist in the guards, the most elite corps in the army.
The very next day and at the earliest hour, the youngster found himself in line at the guards recruitment centre.
To the outsider, the organisation of the bees must seem a haphazard arrangement. This is not the case in reality. Youngsters hover and hop about, buzzing and nudging one another into line. All of them awaiting the orders of their senior commanders, orders which would assign them their duties for the rest of their lives.
“Next!” came the order and Tallis was bumped forward into the hexagonal office of Commander Stinger.
“Name?” barked the tall officer brusquely. Stinger, the commander of the Royal Guard, had the build and bearing of a bee to be reckoned with. When he barked an order or question, it was best responded to instantly.
“Tallis, Sir!” the young bee nervously replied. Stinger, his imposing bulk towering over Tallis, inspected the would be recruit with what appeared to be contempt and not a little distaste. The examination left the young bee visibly vibrating with nerves.
“Hmm! Not much to look at,” commented Stinger, running his experienced eye over the candidate. “Worker status” he said at last. “You’re slightly built, but no doubt you’ll fill out. Plenty of fresh air and exercise will do the trick, it’ll make a man of you.”
“If you please Sir, I’d like to be a soldier and guard the Queen,” came the timorous reply.
“Ridiculous boy! You’re not of the right build. Regulations state guardsmen must also be of a certain social status. You don’t qualify on two counts.
Seeing the boy’s face fall, Stinger relented slightly and added “Exceptions can always be made for outstanding candidates, so I’ll deal with you fairly and set you a simple test. If you can touch your toes, I’ll consider your request. Off you go then.”
At this Tallis folded forward from the waist but failed to reach beyond his knees.
“Just as I thought, it’s a long way down isn’t it? Sorry I can’t use you in the guards.”
“But I can fight Sir!”
“Fight? With what boy? You don’t have a stinger. They should have named you ‘Tail-less’, not Tallis.”
Tallis glanced down between his feet and sure enough, at the end of his bottom there was no stinger.
“Just how do you propose to defend our sovereign lady without a weapon lad?” The question was not unkindly asked, just the same Tallius felt the shame of humiliation and hurt. He had failed in his first task and was not up to standard.
“Dismissed!” came the order which ended the ill fated interview and with that terse command his one chance was over. Dejectedly Tallis left the office and trudged across the hive to where the worker bees were being assigned their tasks.
A Working Bee
Old Bumbler, the ancient commander of all the workers was the oldest bee in the colony. For all anyone knew he was the oldest bee in the world.
“So you’re going to be a worker young man?” he asked, “Well it’s a splendid job, just remember without nectar gatherers, there’d be no food for the world.”
“Sir?” asked Tallis
“It’s simple lad, you see we workers are in the service industry. We gather nectar from the flowers and transfer pollen to other plants in order for them to fruit. We provide the service for nature’s plants, our charge is the nectar we bring away for our own hive.”
“So it’s an essential service?”
“Just so my lad. Without the workers the crops wouldn’t grow properly and we would all go hungry.”
Feeling better about his situation Tallis was accepted at once into the family of workers and having signed his name in the register was ready for work.
The young worker bee set off on his first assignment. Flitting over the meadows he noticed the lovely bright Buttercups, next he buzzed a neat, well tended garden and was tempted by the elegant Spring flowers, a tall yellow Daffodil had particularly caught his eye, he found the trumpet like petals to be especially inviting and so, landing softly and humming gently to himself, Tallis crept inside and began filling the pollen sacks on his hind legs. Not forgetting the service arrangement with the host flower, he vigorously rubbed his head on the stamen before taking off for another flower where he repeated the process.
All day Tallis laboured back and forth, flying up to a mile away in his quest for pollen. It was on his fifth trip that the youngster noticed a neglected briar patch, full of thorns and nettles. No doubt to a garden lover the abandoned plot would have appeared to be a loveless, desolate sight, but Tallis had noticed the purple blossom of a Thistle and decided to try his luck.
Novice flier as he was, Tallis could tell his landing would call for all the skill he could muster. The wicked thorns and barbs of the brambles could easily pierce his delicate wings. This, he knew was going to be tricky.
Flitting and descending in careful stages and managing to avoid the vicious prickles, at last the bee alighted gently and began to harvest the pollen.
It was as Tallis was leaving the Thistle that disaster struck, his hind legs, laden as they were with swollen pollen sacks, trailed much lower than in his usual flight position. The extra weight made manoeuvring difficult and in his clumsy effort to lift off into flight he fell off the blossom he had been cropping and crash landed amongst the weedy grass at the Thistle’s root.
Badly winded and furious at his own clumsiness, the bee set about gathering the grains of spilled pollen. To add to his frustration he repeatedly tripped over the fallen prickles, shed by the neglected bramble the previous season. He knew the rapier sharp thorns could kill him if he fell upon them.
Using all his strength, Tallis leapt into the air, adopting a vertical take off technique and beat his wings furiously. Aiming in the direction of his hive, he managed the flight home without further incident. It was a tired, but thoughtful bee who crawled into his sleeping quarters that evening.
For a worker member of the community, each day is very much like the one before. It consists of labouring for the good of the hive. Some workers looked after the fabric of the structure, mashing up pulpy substances for maintenance and repair. Others were engaged in nursemaiding the larvae, ensuring the youngest members of the community had the best start in life. The soldiers of course were on duty, standing sentry over the Queen and the precious store of honey.
Tallis rose, stretched, yawned mightily and having orientated himself made off for the fields.
The weather promised another fine day and the bee was looking forward to a fruitful harvest to add to the stores.
It was as he crested a nearby hill that he saw a magnificent Horse Chestnut tree. It must have measured fifty
feet in height and crowned the hill on which it stood with its many elegant branches. It was the branches which had attracted the youngster’s attention, or rather the brown sticky buds dotted about them.
Without hesitation Tallis flew down on to a branch, reversed on to a sticky bud and immediately began rubbing his tail end into the glutinous mixture until it was coated. Next he flew off towards the same desolate patch he had visited the day before and having arrived made another careful landing.
Exercising the greatest care not to lower his bottom, Tallis found the sharpest prickle amongst the discarded barbs and heaved it into position, propping it, point down against a leaf. “Now for the tricky part” he thought as he flitted up above the leaf and then lowered himself squarely down on to the thicker base of the thorn.
There he sat for a full five minutes as the natural glue set in the warm sunshine.
What delight! He had manufactured himself the sharpest stinger ever seen. “Tail-less indeed” he said remembering the slight he had suffered when trying out for the guards, “I’ll show them!”
Fencing lessons
All that morning, instead of cropping the flowers, Tallis engaged himself on the task of mastering his weapon. Time and again he charged at imaginary opponents. He dodged and buzzed, hopped and slashed, dived and thrust until he drooped with exhaustion. At last he was satisfied with his ability, but there remained one last exercise that needed to be performed, one that would delight Commander Stinger. Bending forward from the waist, the would be warrior, stretched down with his arms and found his toes were easily within reach. There was nothing to stop him now.
Declaring himself ready, Tallis returned to the colony and once again reported to Stinger’s office. The commander was not best pleased to see the lad as his tone soon made clear.
“Well boy, what is it you want? He asked.
“If you please Sir, I’ve got a stinger” Tallis turned to show his hindquarters.
“That doesn’t look like a regulation weapon boy.”
“Perhaps not Sir, but you’ll admit it adds a sting to my tail. What’s more I can now easily touch my toes, watch this ------” Before he could demonstrate his newly acquired skill however, he was curtly dismissed.
“I’m not interested in any skill you can show me boy! Once a worker, always a worker.” Stinger’s dismissal was short, “You’ll never be a soldier. Now, no pun intended, buzz off and leave soldiering to us soldiers.”
Crushed at his latest rejection, Tallis forlornly trudged away, feeling literally that his tail was between his legs. It was a sad bee indeed who reported for duty to old Buzzer that afternoon.
“It’s not all gloom and doom” the old man said, “Being a guard isn’t all it’s cracked up to be you know!”
“You were once a guard yourself Sir?
“Why yes, I was not always the old pensioner you see before you now. I served my time and saw a battle or two.”
“What happened? Tallis asked eagerly.
“Time my lad! It stands still for no man. When my own time came for retirement I was awarded command of the worker section of the hive as a reward for my past services,”
“But how can you stand it, labouring here, when once you guarded the Queen herself?”
“I told you before Tallis. It’s a service, just a different service to soldiering. Speaking of service, it’s time for you to get back to your normal duties, so off you go young man.” With that Tallis flew off on his pollen collection route.
It was on the last flight of the day that the bee noticed a particularly attractive Daffodil and crawled inside. As he worked away, perfectly concealed within the trumpet of the flower, he was disturbed by the low drones of nearby insects. Thinking that colleagues from his hive had come to join him he was about to call out when a sudden impulse stilled his tongue.
“There’s a honey laden hive just over the next hill and it’s ripe for raiding,” came the first voice. Tallis froze, his instincts told him the hive in question was his own and the voices he heard were not the familiar hum of his own friends and neighbours, but the harsh tones of wasps, a bee’s natural enemy.
“How many guards?” a curt question was fired out.
“A handful only, under the control of Commander Stinger,” the first speaker replied.
“Only a handful of guards?” A third speaker commented derisively. “Not enough to deter or deny us.”
“I’m not so sure,” the second speaker replied, “Stinger’s a good military man, he’ll put up a fight!”
“What are we, wasps or wusses?” The third voice sounded off again. “We have the element of surprise, we are bigger and stronger than any bee and our stingers carry more venom.”
“It is settled then,” said the second wasp. “We go in this evening, just as daylight is fading. We all know bees are at their most drowsy at that time of day.”
Then at a given signal by the leader all three chorused “Confusion to our enemies and death to our foes!”
The Eve of the Battle
His blood chilled by the terrifying plot he had just overheard, Tallis waited for the wasps to disappear before emerging from his hiding place. Youngster though he was, he knew what a wasp raid meant, the destruction of his beloved hive and the death of Qu
een Beetrix and all her subjects as well as the loss of all the precious honey. There was only one thing for it Tallis decided, he had to get back, warn the others and sound the alarm.
Flying at breakneck speed, Tallis fled home where he crash landed, breathless and unable at first to gasp out his warning.
“I must see Commander Stinger,” he panted out at last.
“Not you again?” Said one of the sentries on duty. “You were told before to buzz off! Good advice lad, don’t make a nuisance of yourself.”
“You don’t understand,” Tallis replied, “It’s a matter of life and death, the hive’s in great danger.”
“Look youngster, you should learn to take no for an answer. You will never be a soldier! Now make yourself scarce or I’ll have to deal with you.” Tallis could see he was getting nowhere, worse still his efforts appeared to be antagonising the local guards at a time when they needed to be on high alert and readying for battle.
Not knowing what else to do Tallis decided at last on a plan of action. If the guards wouldn’t help him, perhaps the workers would and that meant old Bumbler needed to be found.
The veteran bee listened attentively to the story Tallis had to tell, as he did so his face grew grim. “And you tried to warn Commander Stinger about what you had heard?” The former soldier asked at last.
“Yes Sir, but the duty guard wouldn’t let me in.”
“Hmm! I’m not surprised, there’s too much posturing and not enough soldiering these days. I’ll summon the workers. From what you’ve said we don’t have much time, so we had better come up with a plan to surprise the wasps and defend the colony.”
In the five minutes it took to assemble the workers of the colony Tallis racked his brain for a battle strategy and at last hit upon an idea that might yet win the day. Standing on a small platform in front of his friends he explained his scheme. “It’s a simple plan,” he said, “But it involves holding your nerve and excellent timing. It will do no good to jump the gun and isolate yourself, we must act collectively and use our heads.”
“But the wasps are bigger than us and they’re better armed,” protested one listener.
“The bigger they are the harder they’ll fall and their bulk is precisely the weapon I’ll turn against them. As for weapons I’ll lead a party of twenty volunteers to collect an arsenal of the finest barbs to be found. Now this is how I think we should organise ourselves,” and with that the failed soldier explained his battle plan.
The Battle for the Hive
The volunteer party, twenty strong, dashed off under the leadership of Tallis whilst Bumbler put the remaining workers through some elementary drill exercises.
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It was as evening was setting in that the lookouts, posted in advance by the once military Bumbler, reported the sighting of a large war party of wasps. “Off you go Tallis, good luck and good hunting” Bumbler encouraged, he seemed to have lost his old man’s stoop and be looking forward to the encounter ahead.
At once Tallis, leading a squadron of small, nimble bees, flew directly at the approaching enemy force. Boldly flying up to the wasp leader, the youngster suddenly dipped his head and almost folding his body under him slashed across his enemy’s eyes with his wicked spike.
Completely surprised by the acrobatic flier in front of him, the wasp was suddenly and temporarily blinded. Furious he snarled out his challenge and plunged after the young bee who had wounded him. This is what Tallis had expected and he now became a gadfly as he danced and dodged around the blundering wasp. To his delight he noted that his comrades were similarly engaged, taunting and nipping at their bigger foes but being careful to keep out of reach of the wasps deadly armoury.
At his signal, the bees disengaged and rallied to Tallis who then led them in what appeared to be a headlong panic of a retreat.
The enraged enemy force sensed a shift in the balance of the fight and charged after the annoying bees, expecting a rout to develop at any second as the home force began to disintegrate in front of them.
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