They liked their work, these foragers, that was sure, and Nuova felt that she would like that kind of work too. Just then Mela, one of the pollen gatherers, climbing up the comb where Nuova was, with her pollen baskets filled by two great masses of golden yellow pollen, stopped for a moment for breath. Nuova stretched her antenna toward Mela and touched her, attracting her attention.
She would like that kind of work.
"Oh, Mela, tell me about it," she said to her eagerly. "Do you hear the birds sing and see the butterflies dance out there? Mela, take me with you when you go back."
Mela was very much astonished to hear a pretty young nurse bee talk to her this way, and she looked first sharply and then rather contemptuously at Nuova.
"You upstart young thing," she said, "take you out with us? Well, I rather think not until you have finished your nursing work. And you are loafing now! Well, you will do your work better in the hive or you can never go out at all, that's sure."
And Uno, Due, and Tre, who had overheard this conversation, buzzed at her one after another: "Lazy! Loafer! Shirk!" and they tried to strike her once more, but Saggia, who had not yet gone down to the floor, again kept them off and whispered rapidly to Nuova: