"Slip over among them," said Saggia in a whisper, "and stuff yourself. Then go when they do to the festoon and hang on to it."
Nuova was so eager to try this new experience that she hardly paused to thank Saggia, although she did let a grateful smile flit over her pretty fresh face as she hurried away.
Just as she reached the food cells she heard a gentle, rather monotonous singing, and glancing in the direction of the group of cell-builders and wax-makers from which it came she saw that under the direction of Cera who had already rejoined her workers, the cell-builders were going through a sort of dance or rhythmic gymnastics, moving their bodies and waving their wings and legs in a sort of exaggerated imitation of moulding and building, and that the wax-makers in the festoon were buzzing their wings to make their bodies warmer and swinging back and forth, and that all of them together were singing a pretty song about their work. This is the song they sang:
Cling close in living curtain,
One thousand swing as one,
Now ooze the amber jellies—
The work has just begun.
Haste, mould the dainty wax flakes
And ply the trowels swift;
Pat, pat—the floors spread wider;
Tap, tap—the light walls lift.
Through all the long hive-twilight,
The patterned cell draw true;—
Tap, tap, with tiny trowel,
We've neither nail nor screw.
Ten thousand honey pantries
And rooms for pollen store;—
Build high the whole bee-city,
And still there's need of more.
As the song and motion dance ceased, Cera called loudly again. This time she wanted cleaners to come. "Here," she cried. "Cleaners! Let a cleaner come. We are getting too much dust on the floor. Cleaners! Cleaners!"
But no one came. Cera, looking impatiently about, saw Nuova glancing up from the food cell over which she was standing, and motioned to her. "Here, you," she said, without seeming to remember that it was with Nuova that she had just had a dispute, "you don't seem to be doing much. You run down to those cleaners," pointing to several cleaners on the floor near the great pear-shaped cell, "and tell one to come here right away. Look lively, now."
Nuova, who seemed always ready for a new thing, gladly ran down the comb to the floor and danced happily across it to a bee that was busily cleaning and touched her with her antennæ. As the cleaner looked up Nuova said: "Cera wants you; they are making too much dust over there."