Nuova; or, The New Bee

by Vernon L. Kellogg

"A crack! There must be a crack! She must have come in through a crack! She couldn't have come in past the guards at the door."

This distracted the attention of the bees from Nuova, for at once they all turned toward Saggia and began shouting all together: "A crack! There's a crack somewhere! Why haven't the crack-fillers found it?"

Then they all began to crowd toward and clamor at the propolis-workers, who, up on their scaffolding, scowled down on the mob, seemingly unafraid and unexcited.

"Well," said Fessa roughly, "find the crack and we'll fill it. That's all we've got to say. Find the crack."

"Yes, that's right," spoke up Saggia loudly. "Some of us hunt for the crack, and some hunt for the eggs and break them or throw them out. Every one that isn't found and hatches in the hive means danger for us. Find them all."

At this the bees all began hunting about for the crack and the eggs. Every now and then an egg would be found and with a loud shout it would be seized and thrown down to the floor of the hive. Nuova, disheveled and still trembling from the fright caused by the attack of the bees on her, crept down to the floor at the side of the hive just under the wax-makers, who had paid no attention to all the hubbub. From here she was looking on at the search for the eggs with astonishment, when Saggia, who had been looking anxiously about for her, saw her and came over close to her.

"Go up and get back into your place in the wax-curtain, and they'll forget all about you," she whispered. "But why didn't you shout out about the Bee Moth when you first saw her?"

"But why should I?" answered Nuova blankly and rather bitterly. "She was such a pretty and such an interesting creature."

Saggia raised her antennæ in astonishment and despair. "Nuova, you are a funny bee. You are so different. What is the matter with you anyway? Don't you know—but, of course, for some extraordinary reason you don't—that your 'pretty and interesting creature' is one of the most dangerous enemies we have? From any of her eggs that we don't find and break, there will hatch a horrible little grub that will keep hidden in the cracks or dark places in the hive, feeding on the wax of the cells and on the pollen and honey, too, and spinning wherever it goes a terrible, sticky, silken web that catches our feet and wings and interferes with our getting around easily. And if there are enough of the Bee Moth's grubs they spin so much web that finally we can't carry on our work in the hive at all, and all our babies starve and the Queen starves, and the whole community goes to ruin. 'Pretty and interesting,' indeed; she is sneaky and despicable, that's what she is. And if you ever see another, rush for her at once and call everybody. Being pretty doesn't necessarily mean being good."

"Yes; but, Saggia," said Nuova slowly, "if her grubs have to have wax and pollen and honey for food, and if there is nobody but Bee Moth to get them for them, and she can't, of course, doesn't she rather have to lay her eggs in a bee-hive where, when her grubby babies hatch out, there will be enough food for them? And don't they have to spin the web to keep us bees from killing them as soon as we see them?"