Laline Paull - The Bees

* * *

There were no chiming bells to mark time in Sanitation, only the differences in the smell of the dirt they cleaned, and the very basic food they ate. There was no chatter or gossip because none of the cleaners could speak, so they derived companionship from labouring together, and pressing close to share their scent.

Like the rest of her kin-sisters, Flora worked in a dull haze, interspersed with pauses for Devotion. When the fragrance of the Queen’s Love rose through the vibrating comb, the sanitation workers stopped wherever they were and cried out in slurred reverence, and Flora felt a moment of blissful relief from the constant pain in her head. Then they all returned to work, and her consciousness shrank back down to whatever task was in hand.

* * *

Sisters of all kin were born and died by their hundreds every day, so collecting the dead was a common occupation for every sanitation worker. As she carried body after body, Flora grew familiar with the routes down from the top and mid-levels of the hive, to the morgue and waste depot on the lowest level. Certain routes were blocked by kin-sensitive scent-locks, which stopped the floras polluting holy areas of the hive, like the nurseries on the mid-level, or the Fanning Hall and Treasury on the top level. After being buffeted back once or twice by the powerful scents, even the slowest sanitation worker like Flora learned not to try that way again, but sometimes on the mid-level of the hive, drifting scents of the Nursery tugged at her brain. The longer she stood, the more they distressed her, until she blundered away groaning.

Despite their status as lowest of the low, even in the department of Sanitation there was a hierarchy of ability. Certain floras could leave the dull, thudding foot-tracks and collect waste from difficult areas, and these sisters were also used to make short waste-disposal flights with corpses or particularly foul-smelling loads, dropping them a hygienic distance from the hive. The second group, to which Flora belonged, experienced such agony in their antennae if they diverged but one step from their ordained track, that the outer limit of their roaming was down to the morgue, or the freight holding area, both on the lowest level of the hive and near to the landing board. Sometimes Flora would pause here, where the vast foreign scent of Air swirled so strong about her body that her wing-joints trembled with a strange sensation – but to dwell on it was to invite pain, and to return to her duties, a relief.

Each sanitation detail had a supervisor from a higher kin, for they were not to be trusted on their own. Today, Flora’s supervisor was a Sister Bindweed, a long narrow bee with sparse fur and a brusque absent manner. She had them working in a vacant area of the Drones’ Arrivals Hall, cleaning out recently used incubation chambers in preparation for repair with consecrated wax.

Each bee had her own set of chambers to work on. Though none of them could speak, they grunted and scraped away with the same rhythm, apparently enjoying their work. Some scrutinised their neighbour’s labour, mutely pointing out the tiniest particle of remaining dirt, while others checked the soiled wax was efficiently compacted for removal. There were no guiding foot-tracks between the drone chambers, so to block painful confusion Flora clenched down on her scarred antennae to focus on the smallest possible area. It made her obsessive, but her work was immaculate, and Sister Bindweed had to shout and throw a piece of wax at her when it was time for Devotion.

From their place in the Drones’ Arrivals Hall, all the sanitation workers could hear the massed choirs of the hive singing through the carved walls. As the vocal vibrations sent the fragrance of the Queen’s Love shimmering through the membrane of the honeycomb and deep into their bodies, some of the floras made incoherent sounds of happiness, while others made rhythmic movements as if they were trying to dance. Flora was one of the many who stood transfixed by the blissful sense of being loved – until the divine surge began to ebb away.

A strange sensation rose inside her, strong as hunger but not for food or water. It was as if her abdomen dragged heavy behind her, and her rigid twisted tongue swelled in her mouth. As her detail returned to work, the sensations grew more insistent. Trying to rid herself of them, Flora shook herself from side to side.

‘Stop that, you stupid creature!’ Sister Bindweed took out her thin rod of propolis resin that she used to poke the sanitation workers without incurring dirty contact and waved it at Flora. ‘Get into that cell and clean it, unless you want me to send you for the Kindness.’

Obediently Flora climbed into the next vacated drone cell. The air was pungent and fetid, the walls and floor crusted with faecal waste. Even through Flora’s deadened senses, her brain thundered with the chemical onslaught from the waste of this drone. As the foul smell destroyed the last fragrant vestige of the Queen’s Love, a sudden rage rose up inside Flora. She attacked the wall with her jaws, furious at the sexual odour of the filth. The tightness in her mouth ignited in two points of pain on either side of her face, but she worked on in a frenzy, tearing out great soiled chunks of wax and hurling them into the corridor. Then all her sound and vision cut out and she was left in a chaos of odours.

Terror-stricken, Flora threw herself out of the drone’s chamber and onto the ground. Somewhere nearby the thinnest filament of the Queen’s Love lingered on the ground where it had come through the comb, and she threw her body down against it, breathing it in to counter the flashing black pain in her head.

‘717! You are behaving like a demented bluebottle – stop that!’

Sister Bindweed tried to kick Flora back to her feet, but with her massive strength Flora clung to the wax until she drew the last molecules of the Queen’s Love into her body. Sister Bindweed’s puny kicks did not hurt, because something far more powerful was taking place in her mind and body.

Her tongue, so long hard and twisted, was warming and softening, and the disgusting taste of the drone waste was fading. Strength was coursing through her body, and her antennae throbbed as their inner channels opened up, restoring her vision and hearing. Most amazing of all was her sense of smell. She could discern all the different waxes used to make the floor tiles on which she lay, and the propolis inlay of the drone cells; she could smell the warm dirty odour of the sanitation workers’ bodies toiling around her—

‘Enough!’ Too angry to use her propolis rod, Sister Bindweed grabbed Flora by the edge of a wing and started pulling her towards the doors. To resist was to tear the membrane, and Flora was forced to hurry with her.

‘If you cannot perform the simplest task’ – Sister Bindweed pushed Flora out into the busy corridor – ‘then good for nothing is what you are, and no more use to this hive!’ Sister Bindweed shouted so vehemently that Flora smelled the half-digested pollen bread on her breath, and the slow taint of old age moving in her belly.

‘You stand there until the police patrol comes by – they’ll know what to do with you, make no mistake.’ Sister Bindweed shuddered at the smell of her own hands where she had grabbed Flora, and went back inside.

* * *

The Drones’ Arrivals Hall opened onto a main lobby filled with thousands of bees moving in all directions, never colliding. For a few moments Flora stood motionless, absorbing the tides of scent information that surged through the air and the vibrations in the coded tiles.

Rose Teasel Malus Clover came the rapid knowledge as different sisters passed her by, Clover Plantain Burdock SAGE—

At that last and fast-approaching kin-scent, a jolt of fear propelled Flora into the great moving mass of bees in the lobby. Instinctively she wanted to hide, and though a thousand floor codes pulsed their messages at her, one overrode them all, and it came from her heart: Beware the Sage.