Laline Paull - The Bees

‘What gender?’

Flora looked in. The larva was newly hatched, soft pearly tendrils of shell still clinging to the translucent white skin. Its tiny face was closed in sleep and a sweet milky smell drifted above it.

‘A female. She is so perfect!’

‘Just another worker. Now find a male.’ Sister Teasel indicated the whole vast nursery.

‘Yes, Sister.’ Flora raised her antennae. On each row she drew in the smell of female babies, strong and constant.

‘You can’t do it from here, you silly girl.’

Flora did not answer. She smelled the different kin of the young nurses, and all the thousand female children. There was no scent of male.

‘I have searched and there are none. Why is that?’

Sister Teasel stared at her.

‘Late in the season Holy Mother stops making them.’ She shook herself. ‘A good sense of smell is not enough to keep you out of Sanitation. Now hold your bold tongue and let us conclude this foolish experiment.’

Sister Teasel pushed Flora to the first worker crib she had shown her, and tapped on its side so that the little creature woke. When it opened its mouth and began to cry, she folded her arms in satisfaction and looked at Flora. ‘And now?’

Flora leaned in to look, and the larva baby flexed and stretched towards her. Its warm scent rose more strongly, threaded with the delicate fragrance of the Queen’s Love. Immediately, two pulses began flickering in Flora’s cheeks, and her mouth began to fill with sweet liquid. She looked to Sister Teasel in alarm.

‘Flow!’ cried Sister Teasel. ‘Don’t swallow, let it come!’

She guided Flora into the right position as the luminous drops spilled from her mouth. As they fell onto the larva baby it stopped crying and wriggled to lap them up. The drops thickened into a thin stream which pooled around the baby’s body until it could drink no more.

The liquid ebbed and Flora’s cheeks stopped flickering. Completely exhausted, she held the side of the crib for support. The baby grew as she watched, and the base of the crib glowed. Other nurses looked across.

‘Well!’ said Sister Teasel. ‘If I had not seen it for myself. A flora from Sanitation, able to make royal jelly – Flow.’ She corrected herself. ‘You must only ever call it Flow.’

‘Why, Sister?’ Flora felt warm and sleepy.

Sister Teasel tutted.

‘No more questions. All you need to remember is to feed as your supervisor instructs you. Not a drop more, no matter how the babies beg. And they will. Now I must find you a place to sleep – though I don’t know what the other girls will say about it. You mustn’t expect them to touch or groom you.’

Sister Teasel led Flora to a rest area where young nurse bees lay talking quietly or sleeping, luminous traces fading round their mouths. She lay down at once.

‘Flora 717 is here by Sister Sage’s express wish.’ Sister Teasel’s tone dared anyone to remonstrate. ‘Yes she makes Flow and yes it is most irregular for her kin, but we are in the season of irregularity, with the rain and the cold and the lack of food – so we will all be helpful. Is that clear?’

The nurses murmured assent and placed food and drink within Flora’s reach, but she was too tired to move. Sister Teasel’s voice continued above her and she knew that when the comb shivered, the divine fragrance that rose up from it was the Queen’s Love, and that this was the sacrament of Devotion. She wanted to join the sweet harmony of nurses in prayer, but the room was warm and dark, and the bed was soft.

* * *

Like the other nurses, Flora’s job was simple. She must give Flow to the babies as directed, rest when it stopped, then repeat. As Sister Teasel had stressed to Sister Sage, the feed timing was very strictly observed and marked with different bells that signalled one or other area of the nursery was due more, or must now stop feeding. These constantly chiming bells, and the shimmering energy of the fed larva, created an intense and dreamlike aura in the nursery, but one sound always alerted Flora’s attention. It was the bright resonant tone of the sun bell, and its particular frequency told all the bees that beyond the safety of the hive walls, day had risen again.

Flora particularly enjoyed its vibration and listened out for its rare pleasure. Every three chimes, the supervising sisters came round and collected all the nurses whose fur had risen and whose Flow was dwindling, and replaced them with new ones, fresh from the Arrivals Hall, their fur still soft and damp.

Flora’s fur had not changed, so she was kept on. By the sixth sun bell, every nurse around her had changed, but her own Flow continued as strongly as ever. Supervising sisters also changed, but there were always several Teasel in their number. As she watched them go about their business, Flora began to understand the workings of the Nursery.

The cribs were always being rotated. Each day the nurses who were soon to leave would clean out a thousand of them, then a small army of sanitation workers would arrive to remove the waste and scrub the floors. Surreptitiously, Flora watched them. Though they never made eye contact or said a word, their vigorous energy was tangible and all the nurses were relieved when they left, none more so than Flora, ashamed of her own kin. Then the nurses would prepare the empty cribs in the newly cleaned area and the supervising sisters would say prayers of purification, before veiling the whole section with the shimmering scent of discretion, ready for the Royal Progress when the Queen laid her eggs.

When the next sun bell sounded, the glorious fragrance of new life rose in the Nursery and a thousand new eggs lay pure and perfect in their cribs. Every bee in the Nursery joined in songs of praise for Immortal Mother’s fertility. It took three more sun bells for the eggs to hatch into larva babies, and then it was time to feed them Flow.

Under strictly timed supervision from a senior sister, for the next three days Flora and other feeding nurses watched in amazement as the babies grew before their eyes. Their sweet scent rippled with changes in their bodies, and then came the stark moment when the supervising sisters piped a quick whistle to stop the feeding. No matter how hungry a baby might be, not a single drop more might be given, for it was time to wean them in the Category Two ward.

To Flora, this was a highly desirable place to work. Through the big double doors that separated the two nursery wards, she had often glimpsed older nurses playing and singing with the bigger children, even cuddling them in their arms.

Everything about the Ceremony of Transition was exciting to Flora, from the way the babies started wriggling and laughing in excitement at the delicious food smells coming from the double doors dividing the wards, to the first strains of the cheerful hymns sung by the nurses who came for them. With graceful curtsies to all in the Category One ward, even Flora, they scooped up the laughing babies and the doors closed soft behind them.

With their fully risen fur, elegant limbs and narrow curtsies, these sophisticated Category Two kins of Violet, Primrose and Vetch won Flora’s particular admiration. Discreetly in the dim holy atmosphere of Category One, she practised her own curtsy to overcome her shameful splay – just in case Sister Sage should reappear and move her to Category Two.

This was such a wonderful thought that Flora began including it in her prayers at Devotion. She forgot it each time the enchanting fragrance of the Queen’s Love rose up through the comb, but when the nurses changed again and her fur had still not risen, she gathered up her courage and sought out Sister Teasel.

‘You want to move ?’ Sister Teasel stared at her in amazement. ‘From Category One, the holiest place in the hive and the closest you will ever come to Her Majesty? Why, She passes by us every day!’