The Swarm

It was time for the swarm. Now all thoughts of poor honey levels were put on hold. Luckily, it seemed to Drononimus, the workers had not turned on the Drones. ‘There was nothing like a state occasion for the minds of the workers to be distracted,’ he thought to himself.

Guarded by the Drones, and with all her majesty, Queen Beatrice launched herself into the air from the landing strip with the full expectation of being followed by a massive swarm. The weather had been hot. The distant garden flowers must have produced well. Surely the colony would put on its best show for such an occasion. After working so hard for her subjects the Queen was looking forward to having a bit of a party and was anticipating a great display. 

Yet, to her great surprise, she was surrounded by a meagre group of less than fit workers. The term swarm would have overstated the size. Queen Beatrice addressed two weary workers looking rather grungy in ripped tee shirts. ‘Pray, tell me what has happened here?’ She could barely utter the question.

‘We eez all worn out. Zeeezz short-haul flights have done uz in. All the nectar eez in the distant gardens but we have been forbidden to go there,’ one of the workers replied in a very tired voice.

‘Square honeycomb needz constant repairz and we can’t eat Royal Jelly,’ said the other barely able to get out the words.

Drononimus was nearby in the Queen’s Flight. ‘What is all of this?’ Queen Beatrice demanded of him.

‘Well, the Drones called in the Consultantz….’ Drononimus desperately tried to share the blame that was surely heading in his direction. ‘They seem to have been persuaded that changes were needed,’ and then added rather quickly, ‘but we won’t be paying the Consultanz invoice.’ 

The Queen, disgruntled, decided to head back home. Drononimus was pleased that, at least, the consultanz had not managed to find a replacement for her and she would not have to fight to re-enter her old hive.

As was customary at the end of the day, two guard bees, Milly and Flor chatted at the entrance to the hive. They were rather relaxed about the day. Of course it had not gone well for the Queen. She had returned to an old home with a ragged swarm. It had not gone well for many of the Drones either who were refused re-entry to the hive by the aggressive guards.

 
Yet, the hive had got back to some old order. Milly allowed himself a short waggle in anticipation of the good old days returning, then he asked, ‘Hey Flor, why did all the Consultanz look sad? Because they had no uncles only…’ He didn’t finish the sentence as two workers interrupted him by bumping to a halt on the landing strip. Heavily laden they were bringing back the flower nectar from the distant gardens.