Related previous posts: Bees Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Bees, Pt 4

All that night, Honey cried in her cubicle, crushed by the disorientation she’d encountered and the danger she’d felt.

I can’t go out there again, she told herself. It’s too scary.

Well, you can’t stay here forever, she replied. You simply must go back out.

I can’t, she thought in a fever dream. It’s too dangerous. I could accidentally betray my queen! And so the argument raged back and forth in her muddled mind.

She’d just managed to doze off when dawn broke, and with it, the clear light of purpose. She was a harvester. Her job was to harvest pollen for her queen. Not just her job, her purpose. Her very existence demanded service. And serve she would.

Creeping through the corridors of the comb, Honey crawled to the exit. From this proximity, the message from her queen was beyond doubt. And yet the siren’s call of the other queen lay somewhere in the wilds beyond the garden, beckoning her with alien allure.

I must harvest for my queen!

Honey pushed off from the portico and drifted towards the pool and the surrounding flowerbeds. What greeted her was a sight beyond imagination. Everywhere she looked, bees lay dead or dying. Some lay on the pavers by the water, twitching in uncontrolled spasms. Others thrashed in the water. Having inexplicably flown into the hot tub, these bees were now too wet to lift off.

Mercy! This is worse than the oak tree massacre.

As Honey watched, a drone spiraled from above and slammed into the surface of the warm water. The impact made Honey shudder. The drone surfaced for a moment, desperately beating its wings. But it was no use. With a few final flutters, Honey’s cohort ceased struggling and grew still.

Another bee flew by, zigging and zagging a haphazard line. Clearly disoriented, it dipped and swerved while struggling to remain aloft. A moment later, it nose-dived straight into the concrete. Thankfully, its struggle was brief compared to the companion who’d succumb to the water.

She twitched her antennae in confusion. She understood their disorientation, but why were they crashing? It’s as if they’ve lost their minds.

The answer came in the form of a powerful psionic pulse from across the garden. Not content to beckon bees with a consistent call, the invading queen has resorted to storing up her pheromonal summons and sending them out in blistering bursts, like tidal waves crashing against the shore of the bee’s collective consciousness.

Honey only needed to feel the impact once to know the impact. Any bee caught in the open for long would be driven mad by the mental barrage. The message was simple: Submit or die.

Trying her best to tune out the transmissions, Honey set off towards the nearest flower bed, a cloistered cluster of purple poppies and azure azaleas. Finding the first flower mercifully empty, she hoovered over the stigma then settled onto the stamen where she set about her work. She was less than halfway done when a blaring blast bent the airwaves. She felt it like the heat of a furnace, or the hard winds that herald a hurricane.

The gust pushed Honey to the peak of the petal. Wings paralyzed by the psychic pulse, she clung to her perch with strength born of pure panic. Like the setting of the sun, the fierce emission of the foreign queen faded fractionally. Gradually, the blistering barrage abated. Disoriented and dizzy, she took a split second to summon her senses.

As soon as she felt safe enough to fly, Honey launched into the air, heading straight back towards her hive. All around lay the devastation and death from the latest volley. Dozens of new bees lay among the prior carnage. The few that had been on the ground or seated on plants like her, now took to the sky once again. Almost all of them headed towards the far side of the garden, towards the balcony and the foreign queen.

Traitors! thought Honey. Or perhaps they were just confused. She had no way to know. At least they were still alive.

Little hope remained for the rest. Those who had struck the ground would likely never fly again, while those who had crashed into the pool would find only a watery grave. With a final grim glance at her cohorts, and an extra umph of speed, Honey streaked for safety before another shockwave could strike her senseless.

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