"It is hard, though," she thought, "that we should have to be so hungry."
And then she knocked on the princess's wall and called to her, "Give me a little of your honey. Let me come into your chamber. I am lying here so hungry, and I am just as good as you."
"Are you? Just you wait till I am a reigning queen," said the princess. "You may be sure that when that time comes I shall not forget your impertinence."
But she had scarcely said this before the other princesses began to cry out in the most dreadful manner.
"You're not going to be queen! I shall be queen! I shall be queen!" they shrieked all together, and they began to knock on the walls and make a frightful disturbance.
The head bee-nurse came running up in an instant and opened the doors.
"What are your graces' orders?" she asked, dropping a curtsy and scraping the ground with her feet.
"More honey!" they shouted, all in one voice. "But me first—me first. I am the one who is to be queen."