“Good morning, sister,” said the devil. “What has brought thee to me?”
“Well, you see, God has sent me to ask what he was to do with this huge earth.”
But the devil grumpily and sneeringly replied, “If he is God he ought to know better than to ask a poor devil for advice. I am not going to tell him. Let him find it out for himself.”
The bee, who was a clever little thing—it was not for nothing that God’s choice had fallen upon her—pretended to fly away. But she soon crept back quite stealthily and settled noiselessly on the upper beam of the door. She knew that the devil cannot keep any secrets, and he would surely speak out. So, indeed, it happened. No sooner did he believe himself alone, than he started muttering to himself, chuckling all the time.
“A clever man that God really is. He asks me what to do. Why does he not think of mountains and valleys?” You must know that the earth when first made was quite flat, like a pancake.
“Let him take the earth in his arms and squeeze it a bit, and it will fit all right.”
The bee overheard what he said, for he spoke loud enough, and rejoicing that she had got the answer, spread out her wings and started flying away. The buzzing of her wings betrayed her, and the devil, hearing the noise, rushed out of his cave with his whip in his hand and said: “O you thief! So that is the way you have cheated me. Mayst thou feed on what comes out of thy body.” And he struck the bee with his whip.
This changed her white colour into black. Moreover, he hit her so badly that he nearly cut her in two. That is why the bee has such a narrow waist, that she looks as if she were cut in two and barely hanging together by a thread.
Limping and sore, the bee came back to God and told him what she had overheard from the devil. God was greatly pleased and, squeezing the earth in his arms, he made mountains and valleys, and the earth grew smaller.
Then turning to the bee he said, “Out of thy body henceforth shall come only honey to sweeten the life of man and he shall bless thee for that gift; also shalt thou bring forth wax for candles on the altar.”