The First Chapter of my Book, The Bees of Apios

One š

Discovery

On this earth, at the northern edge of a pine forest, there stood an old hollow oak tree. And in this oak tree there lived a colony of honeybees.

At the start of the summer harvest, in a patch of tall fragrant wildflowers, many bees were busy gathering nectar and pollen to feed the hive back home. Under the command of Captain Kepi, a squadron of Apios Royal Force cadets patrols the length of the sprawling flower patch by flying around and through the yellow lilies, the purple iris and blue delphiniums. Kepi is their protector. She is one of Queen Duna’s elite and on this day it is her duty to make certain the harvest remains part of their safe-guarded property.

One of the foragers caught scent of the intruder first. She had floated lazily in and was about to rest on the purple petal of an iris when she collapsed, plummeting from the air like a dewdrop. She fell through the flowers, past the huge trunk-like stems and onto a springy leaf near the moist black dirt of the ground.

“Did you smell that?” One forager asked of a companion, who had been swallowed entirely by a lily and who had just popped out of the flower with yellow pollen encrusted in her hair. She wiped her wings and sniffed the air by waving her antennae back and forth.

“Smells like someone’s hurt. Not one of ours, is it?” Both bees appeared at the edge of their lilies and looked down from the tops of the flowers. Below lay the stranger, turned on her side, trembling in exhaustion. Another forager flew over to see the cause of the disturbance.

“I smell an alarm. Is everything all right?” All three bees had two large baskets of pollen resting on each hind leg, the fortunate byproduct of the morning’s work.

“Call Kepi over.” The first forager told the second. “It could be a threat.” The forager was about to lift off with this message when the Captain herself appeared behind them. She had already landed on the large fully-bloomed iris with a pair of cadets at her sides. Captain Kepi approached the precipice of the flower petal where all six bees looked down into the shade of the flower forest. More foragers and the rest of Kepi’s guard floated in to satisfy their curiosity. The second of the discoverers then spoke.

“Captain, an injured bee has fallen below. Can you see her? She’s in the nook of that leaf and flower stem there.”

“I can smell her.” The Captain twirled her antennae before gesturing toward the two closest of her cadets. “Follow me down, cadets. You foragers continue to work.” A few of the foragers looked at each other in disappointment before flying away to bring their collected nectar and pollen to the nest.

Kepi and her two cadets hovered down into the shade, landed next to the hurt bee and hesitantly placed their antennae onto the stranger’s body. The fallen bee quickly turned, startling all three. They assumed a defensive pose, mandibles open, and forelegs off the ground.

“She’s in pain,” Kepi said once she realized how ridiculous they all looked. “There’s no reason to be afraid. She would be no match for any one of us, let alone all three.” The bees relaxed, the one called Private Zoza spoke out.

“Her sting is intact, but her wing is torn and it looks as if she’s missing a leg.” There were shafts of light slanting through the tall stems of the flowers into the semi-darkness; the air was cool and humid. “Shall we put her out of her misery?”

“No,” Kepi said after a moment. “Let’s see if she can speak.”

“Hey—you—speak,” the other cadet said, pressing her foreleg into the creature’s thorax and backing away. The injured bee muttered something that no one could hear. Those around her looked to each other in confusion. “What was that? Come now speak up.” The young bee pressed into her again, trying to impress the Captain by showing that she was not afraid of this injured insect.

“Stop pestering her, private.” Kepi said. “She’s in no condition to respond with you kicking her like that. We should try communicating.” Kepi began pronouncing the words slowly and loudly. “You are in our flower patch. You smell as if you are in danger. Do you need assistance so that you may be on your way?” A moment passed before there was any response. The injured bee stammered something weakly, but in a language completely foreign to them.

“Sembla fa hasha,” she whispered before turning away and passing out.

“What was that?” Private Zoza said.

“It sounds like she had something stuck in her throat.” The other cadet said.

“Ebro.” Kepi said, though she was surprised she could recognize the language. “It’s Ebro. Have any of you ever heard Ebro before?” Both bees looked to each other for an answer.

“With all respect, sister, I think we should get rid of her. She could be rife with mites.” Both bees waited for Kepi to respond. Now that it was evident this was a foreigner speaking a bizarre language that neither had ever heard, they began to feel uncomfortable. Kepi could sense this.

“I understand why you might feel that way, but I have heard the Ebro language mentioned through the Council. This bee has traveled from a far away place. She’s plainly not a straggler from one of our neighbor colonies and though she does not smell of disease, she is alarmed, exhausted, and hurt. We should take her to the Queen.” The Captain thought over what they should do next. “Here, help me. Take her by the sides. We’ll carry her to Apios.” And without hesitation all three honeybees took the injured stranger gently into their mandibles and forelimbs and lifted her up, flying towards the light at the top of the flowers.

Ë

Ooki, the head gatekeeper at Apios, with a following of guards, met Captain Kepi and her squadron of bees in mid-air just before they arrived at the lip of the entrance to the oak tree. “Kepi, what’s happened?” Ooki asked worriedly, which was no surprise because she worried about most everything. “Foragers arriving before you claim there was some disturbance in the field. How many were there? Was it another colony? Hornets? Wasps? Humming birds?”

“No, Ooki. No disturbance. Just this injured bee.” The cluster of guards made it difficult to maneuver in the air. “Make way everyone! Don’t be alarmed. Come now, make room, make room!” The three insects landed at the entrance of the nest while other bees careened softly in from their foraging. Some foragers grew interested in the festoon of insects and stopped to investigate. Most remained oblivious, completely absorbed in their daily duties. Within the few moments of their arrival, hundreds of foragers passed in and out of the hive entrance in a continuous flow of activity.

“Kepi, she must be screened for any disease or mites--you are well aware of protocol.” Ooki said. “She shouldn’t even be here. We must bring this up with Captain Butu at once.”

“Ooki, would you please calm down. Go ahead and examine her. We’ve stopped here for you to make sure she isn’t sick. But we didn’t sense anything wrong with her in the field.” Kepi looked over the two cadets who had accompanied her to the flower patch floor. She noted that Private Zoza, the cadet with the hostile tendencies, had begun cleaning her wings evasively. Ooki and her gatekeepers assessed the stranger by placing their antennae over her. Tiny hairs on her body sent out signals that hairs on their antennae received and they sensed hunger and exhaustion. Kepi waited through this process. “She speaks a form of Ebro. I haven’t heard anything like it.”

“Well, whoever she is, she’s nearly passed into the Morning Light. She’s starving.” And before anyone could say anything more, the gatekeeper regurgitated some food from her honey stomach and placed it directly into the stranger’s mouth with her tongue. The outsider responded slowly, swallowing and rolling her antennae to the side. She had been placed on the threshold between the wood lip of the entrance into the tree and the rim where the golden honeycomb began. A small circle of bees had formed around her body watching her movement. “Well, for Kará’s sake, she won’t do any good lying in the way of the foragers. Take her to the nursery.”

“A fine idea, Ooki,” Kepi said with haste. “Can we leave her with you, then? My squad and I have abandoned the others still working in the flower patch.”

“Well I...” Ooki grumbled. “Why must I….? I don’t know what… Oh, I suppose I’ll take her in myself, then. One of you guards take over my post and you bees help me bring her to the nursery.” Before they disappeared into the nest, Captain Kepi turned with her squadron to fly back to the wildflower patch, stopping briefly to reassure the gatekeeper.

“Ooki, don’t worry, she’s my responsibility. I will speak with Councilor Hiku this evening to discuss what to do with her. If there are any problems, tell them that I wager my influence on this. I have a feeling she’s here for good reason.” And quickly they were off, the sound of their wings humming as they proceeded into the field. Ooki, with her three other gatekeepers, lifted the stranger and carried her deeper into Apios.

Ë

Inside the trunk of a hollow tree, the hive was a dark place. But like any bee, the citizens of Apios had ways of commuting without the light. A combination of feeling with antennae, vibrating the wing muscles to communicate, and the ingrained habit of crawling the same passageway over and over, generation after generation, allowed the gatekeepers to carry the nameless guest around the vertical comb.

The five guards weaved around the corridors and moved deeper into the great maze of a hive bustling with the life and energy of fourteen thousand bees, when finally they had reached the nursery entrance. In contrast with the dark passages, the nursery itself was marvelously well lit. Whenever they entered the room, the bees were always astounded by the light. The nursery was located where a slash in the back of the tree formed a natural skylight. Covered with a thick wall of translucent wax, the golden sunrays refracted and reflected against the creamy yellow-orange comb. Here security was not as tight as it was at the entrance to Apios, but considering the next generation of bees was growing in the hexagonal cribs behind the wax enclosure, precaution was still stringent. Multiple sets of antennae found their way onto each bee body. Ooki and her guards were probed by the nursery maids.

“Nurse Kiko, we have someone Captain Kepi thrust upon us from the outside. She’s too weak to be a threat. Kepi seems to believe this bee is important to us. She has also informed me that she must finish her watch at the flower patch and will bring the matter up with Councilor Hiku this evening. In the meantime, you must take care of her and nurse her back to strength.”

“But she’s clearly not one of us,” Kiko said. “Why wasn’t she taken care of in the field? I won’t risk contamination of the brood based merely on the Captain’s word.”

“Yes, but Kepi insists that your nurses take care of her and is willing to take full responsibility. As I say, she has reason to believe this bee’s visit has some significance.”

“Well, she isn’t infected. I could tell that upon first examination. And that wing could certainly use some cleaning.” There was a brief pause before Kiko came to a conclusion. “Ah, well, let her in. We’ll place her in a guarded cell.” As bees who were in positions of power were prone to do, Kiko addressed her assistants and assigned them tasks. “You maids clean and prepare a single cell. Make it an empty drone cell, something large enough for her to move around in. And you bees have the responsibility of feeding her royal jelly until I say otherwise, understood?”

The nursery maids gestured and cleaned their antennae signaling their understanding. They then carried the wounded bee across a floor of capped cells holding thousands of growing larvae deeper into the sunny glow of the nursery.

“Ooki, I know that Kepi is not one to make judgement errors, but if this bee harms any of the new brood, it would be catastrophic. We could be exiled.”

“There’s no need to make me more nervous than I already am, Kiko. I’ve been concerned about this from the moment they brought her in. May Kará guide us.” Ooki then turned with her band of gatekeepers and crawled down the corridor into the traffic of the nest, towards her post at the mouth of the hive.

Ë

After the day’s work, Captain Kepi rested in her small cell located in the sleeping quarters of Apios, trying to remember the stories she was told by Councilor Hiku regarding Ebro, the language spoken by the newcomer. Kepi’s rank afforded her a larger cell than most, but it was still just big enough for a couple of bees to move around in. She was in need of sleep. In the early morning she had patrol duty at the flower patch and in the afternoon she would have to bring the foreign bee to the Queen’s Council. She remained awake to receive Councilor Hiku. She wondered why she had been so sure of all this. She knew a little about the language of Ebro and the significance it had in the mythology of beefolk, but there were many gaps in her knowledge. Her thoughts were quickly cast aside when two Royal Guards entered her cell.

“Captain?” One of the guards called out from the dark. “Councilor Hiku is here to see you.” And following this introduction, Hiku, the Queen’s Chief General and a respected member of the Council, appeared in the cell. Though she could not be seen in the darkness, her presence could be felt and they communicated their greetings to each other through their antennae. The Councilor was not rude in her entrance, but she addressed Kepi matter-of-factly.

“Good evening, sister,” she said. “Guards, would you wait outside in the corridor? I would like to speak with the Captain alone.” The guards left the cell. “I hope I have not disturbed you, sister.”

“Not in the least. I was just now trying to recall what I knew about the language of Ebro. The new bee has brought it with her.”

“So I’ve heard. She speaks Ebro. The old idiom.”

“Yes. But General, why is it so rare?”

“We council bees simply haven’t shared much of what we know of Ebro. It has tremendous power, you see. The power of the Morning Light. It seems you have lit upon something quite considerable.”

“Forgive me councilor, but I don’t know what you mean.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I know, but I need to make certain you remain wise with this information and do not frighten or distract any of our sisters here at Apios. As I say, like any newfound knowledge, it can be abused by those who possess it.”

“Of course, Hiku, I feel fortunate that the Council would share anything with me at all.” Convinced with this, Hiku launched into her story, which the Captain was eager to hear, not only because she was to learn something significant, but because the Councilor could tell a good tale.

“You are aware of the word ‘Kará’ which all bees exclaim when they are excited, annoyed, or angry? As in ‘what in Kará’s name are you doing?’ and ‘for Kará’s sake will you please stop complaining?’ Well, bees who do this actually take in vain the name of a great heroine. The language of Ebro was said to be the language given to Kará, the mythical new queen who gives strength and hope to every single bee who believes. When Kará was hatched at the great colony of Ossa and growing inside her cell many generations ago, no bee could have known that she would be their savior. Everyone believed she would be another queen anxious to emerge, mate with a drone and swarm off to form a new nest like all the rest. It is said that Kará was quite slow in emerging from her cell and the nurse maids who took care of her were afraid she had died as larvae. Other queens had already emerged and found drones to mate with long before she even started to crack her cell cap. And when she finally began to chew the cap away and emerge, there was a sense of relief among the nurses.

“This relief was followed by a tremendous horror. While Kará broke free from her crib and was being assisted out, the nurses were first to witness the mutant that would live on in infamy. Kará had the head the size of a drone, very big, with two huge eyes, but she also had three sets of wings, one set sprouting just behind the head, another coming from the mid-thorax, and another pair from where her abdomen began. And if that were not enough, the nurse maids recoiled when they saw the size of her sting. It was incredibly huge. Needless to say, everyone was terrified. To the rest of the brood she was a horrible mutation, not a drone or a worker bee, for the size of her abdomen spoke otherwise. Yet she was not a queen, for the size of her head and sting were grossly enlarged. And what were the nurses to make of those six wings?

“What was most bizarre about this newborn bee was the language that came from her. Council bees have always theorized that Ebro was the voice of the Morning Light, a language pure and natural. But at the time of her hatching, the bees of Ossa had never heard it before, and they gave in to their fear. A group of workers, gathered under the direction of the Queen, grabbed hold of Kará in the nursery, pulled her out of the hive, and ejected her from their existence, with hopes of never seeing such a terrifying creature again. No one could understand her strange words of pleading, nor did they care. The Queen simply did not want that horrific mutation in her nest, or any record of her in the blood line.

“And so Kará was thrown out of the home where she was hatched. She landed in the grass on the ground underneath the nest that hung high above from a tree branch. Hungry and thirsty and weak, she was fortunate enough to find a dewdrop in the moonlight to drink from. When she extinguished her thirst, she crawled along the tall blades of grass in the first direction she chose.

“The night was cold and the sounds of the night creatures frightened her. She looked at herself in a puddle and was sad with what she saw. The mutated body, the sting and her three sets of wings, which she cleaned as best she could before she hid under a mushroom to fall asleep.

“In the morning she awoke to the sound of rain and a peculiar grunting noise, but from where she hid underneath the fungus, she could not tell from which direction the noise came. But instead of feeling miserable like she had the night before, she felt strong. She was not hungry or thirsty and the beating of the rain onto the grass and dirt was soothing. She was startled to find that she now had control over her wings. She could feel each set of them move on her back. Though it was raining, she tried to fly for the first time. She faltered at first and went down stumbling, but came right back up again when the large grunting thing she heard earlier cast a large shadow over the toadstool and grass where she had slept. After the beast passed, she felt the big rain drops fall on top of her.

“When the rain stopped, the sun came out to warm her while she rested on the rock. Soon the air was filled with a treacherous stench. It made her nervous and when she smelled it more closely, she recognized the alarm scent of her own sister honeybees. A mass of bees flew by the rock upon which she rested. One landed and crawled over to Kará, the sting ripped from her abdomen.

“‘Exo la serteta?’ Kará had asked her and we know now that in Ebro this loosely translates to: ‘Are you all right?’ Only the dying bee would never understand her and could only stammer in our native Abej, ‘Baaaadger.’

“When another victim landed on the rock in the same condition, with the sting removed, Kará took to the air. She did not know what a badger was, but she recognized that these dying bees around her were her sisters and something had to be done. With her three sets of wings, Kará flew like a seed caught in a strong wind, across the distance she had crawled the night before, all the way to Ossa, where she had hatched and had been exiled. Indeed, an animal was having its way with the nest, a brown badger with a white stripe down its back, in search of the hive’s honey supply. It tore at the nest high up in the tree. There were frantic bees everywhere, some escaped while others stung the creature wherever they could. The badger had one last swipe at the nest, which broke away from where it was attached to the branch and plummeted to the ground. The nest landed with a crunch and the bees who managed to flee were furious as they swarmed the badger that now climbed carefully down to have at its prize.

Kará watched as hundreds of bees tried stinging the beast to no effect. And when the animal landed on the ground, it ripped open the nest with its powerful claws and feasted greedily on the exposed honeycomb. Ossa lay in ruins and Kará could do nothing but follow her instinct. She used the speed provided by her new wings and gained great momentum and when she neared the beast, she went tail first and sunk her sting right into its nose. With Kará’s tremendous speed and sting size, it was as if a big thorn had been plunged directly into the most sensitive spot on the badger’s face. The animal retreated howling and trotted quickly away from what was left of Ossa. Kará, meanwhile, was amazed to see that she no longer had the large sting protruding from her thorax; it had been left behind in the animal’s nose and with it most of her internal organs.

“Knowing that she was soon to die, Kará landed near the destroyed nest of Ossa and examined the chaos that had ensued. There were bee bodies laying around the nest whose useless stings were still somewhere in the badger’s skin. But everyone who had seen the event knew well that it was Kará, their mutated sister, the exile, who had stung the badger on the nose. Here was their home, destroyed, and the savior they had been so quick to judge slowly dying, her sting torn from her body. As she rested there on a blade of grass, she did not feel any pain; instead she felt a remarkable sensation of peace. And this event was to be remembered as the Ossan survivors gathered around her and watched her pass into the Morning Light.”

After a moment of pondering Hiku’s tale back in her sleeping cell, Kepi said, “So that is the story of Kará? Even though she was ejected from the colony, she returned to give her life back to the nest that had given it to her in the first place.”

“Exactly right.” The Councilor agreed. “Protection of the nest comes above all.”

“It is a nice tale. But what more of Ebro, Hiku? And how can our visitor speak the language when it seems to have died out with Kará?”

“After Kará gave her last wing beat as a result of the badger attack, something curious began to happen to the bees of Ossa. Naturally, they were forced to abandon the shattered nest and find a place to build a new one. In addition, the Queen of Ossa who had driven Kará out in the first place had died in the collapse. A new monarch was needed to take over her position. And the superceding Queen was the first to have the idea that a nest could thrive inside an already existing structure rather than having to be built entirely from scratch. And thus, the surviving Ossan bees began to excavate the tree outside of which they had lived for so many generations. They quickly moved in. For us bees here at Apios, life in this old oak tree has become quite commonplace, but for the Ossan bees, to live inside a living tree was a new concept indeed.

“As an additional result of Kará’s passing, a flow of new discoveries and ideas began to develop, such as helping all bees who might be hatched within a nursery, regardless of any disability or mutation they might have. The Queen had others to help her make decisions, the Union of Masons, the Foragers Union and the Nurses Guild, all forming what we consider the Council today. They decided to section off the colony for efficiency with separate nurseries and honey stores. The council also created guards and warriors to protect the foragers, builders to furnish the hive, and nurses to develop its health and strength. Once bees began to see that they each possessed individual ideas and unique gifts, like Kará and her three sets of wings, they realized a great deal of power. And that is why beefolk no longer build nests with a single comb where bees are reared and honey remains stored away unprotected. Now we can protect ourselves and our honey assets as we see fit.

“Ossa became a magnificent colony. But what was strangest of all, once they began to settle into their new home, Ossan bees started hatching in the nursery, drones, workers, and new queens, all speaking the language of Ebro. No one had ever heard anything like it before, but the new brood forced the older generation to begin understanding the language whether they preferred to or not.”

“So the language just came to be?” Kepi asked, knowing this was contrary to all she understood about language and communication, a thing that bees learned gradually throughout a lifetime.

“Yes. It just came to be. They say the short life of Kará was essential for the development of bees. Members of the Council believe the presence of the Morning Light could be felt powerfully throughout this period, and the birth of this language meant we insects had achieved something important. It was truly a profound time to be a bee. And so this is why our visitor who speaks Ebro must not be taken lightly. Whatever the Council can get out of her tomorrow must be kept in the highest esteem.”

“Hiku, I had no idea you could speak Ebro.”

“Alas, Kepi, I cannot. Like most, I only know certain sayings like fro sha-sha, which, as you know, means ‘you smell strange’ and ‘hibidi korak,’ which means, as you are well aware, ‘good honey takes time.’ There is only one bee in all of Apios who is completely fluent and that is the infertile Princess Opo.”

“Old Opo? How does she know it?”

“She was not born with the ability to give life, but with the ability to speak Ebro.”

“And how is it that positively none of this information about Ebro and Kará and the great nest of Ossa has been passed on to me or to any of the other good bees of Apios? Why has it remained amongst the council? With all respect, this seems entirely unfair.”

“Calm yourself, Kepi. There is a reason and time for everything. As I warned you earlier, this information would confuse and distract most bees from their work here at Apios. We are doing quite well presently, and the Council believes that there is no reason to release any wild ideas to challenge that.”

“But every bee has the right to know the truth about Kará, Hiku.”

“Indeed, it was only a matter of time.”

“Well, we shall see what this bee has to say tomorrow. And if it has anything to do with the wellbeing of those here at Apios, as a member of the Queen Duna’s Royal Force, I insist we inform everyone about Ebro. Without that information there is simply no other way for us to make sense of our existence.”

“Spoken like a true leader. Perhaps, Kepi, you were meant to be a member of the Council yourself. Of course, things will start changing around here. Indeed, they already have. But in the meantime, I must be off. I am required in the chambers to meet with Councilor Miza and the Masons Union. Apparently, they feel their mid-day break isn’t long enough. I will never understand bees. We were meant to work ourselves to death. A longer break, for Kará’s sake? Leave it for the lazy beetles and grasshoppers.” Chief General Hiku made her way towards the entry way of the cell, and Kepi could tell she was preparing to leave.

“Will I see you tomorrow in the Great Hexagon?”

“Of course, your visitor is first on our agenda. Goodnight.” Councilor Hiku left Captain Kepi alone in her cell, alone with her thoughts. Before she was aware of it, the Captain left herself to sleep.

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