But Nuova blindly persisted. "Well, then, why don't you go out and gather pollen and bring nectar; out into the sunshine, out into the garden."
The poor, deformed bee, now angry, indeed, began jumping up and down violently right in front of Nuova, and then suddenly whirled around, bringing his back and crumpled wings fairly in her face. "Oh, silly little pretty, pretty little silly!" he cried; "which is to say, blind one, stupid one, heartless one, would I like to go out, out into the warm sunshine, out into the fragrant garden! Would I like to go! Blind, stupid, brutal one!"
When Nuova saw the poor, crumpled-up, useless wings, she suddenly understood, and she felt like striking herself in the face as she realized all the stupid, brutal things she had said. "Oh, you poor, poor bee!" she cried as she touched Beffa caressingly again and again with her antennæ. "I didn't see; I didn't understand; I am so sorry! Won't you forgive me? Please?"
Beffa, though partly appeased, was still half angry, and still spoke bitterly. "Oh, you do understand now! You do understand why I hop and sing; why I dance for the Queen; and why I do anything I can do when I can't do other things; can't do what a drone ought to do, fly wide and high in the Great Courting Chase after the Princess. I am glad you understand now. But hush, listen!" He whirled around, facing toward the great pear-shaped cell in the lower center of the comb. "Hark! Principessa, the new Princess, calls. Hark!"
Beffa and Nuova stood silent and expectant, facing toward the Princess's cell as did all the other bees. There was a tense excitement everywhere. Nuova felt that something very important was happening. And then came a strange sound, first faint and low, then louder and shriller. It was the piping of the young Princess shut up in her great cell, but ready now to come out. It sent a shiver of excitement through all the bees. Ventilators stopped buzzing and wax-makers and comb-builders turned their faces intently toward the sound, and even the crack-fillers, far up at the roof, stopped their work and peered down excitedly.
There had come, indeed, one of the most exciting and tense moments that ever come to a bee community. It was the moment that precedes the birth of a new royal bee, a Princess who is destined to be the new Queen of the hive, or to go out from the hive with many of the workers to establish a new community of her own.
Again came the shrill piping of the Princess in the royal cell. Another wave of excitement ran over the hive. And again and again the weird sound came. Suddenly the royal nurses began excitedly to plaster wax on the outside of the great cell, especially over its mouth.
Beffa whispered to Nuova: "She is trying to work her way out, but they don't want to let her out yet. See, the drones are coming."
And even as he spoke a gay song was heard, in voices very different from any that Nuova had yet heard in the hive; and suddenly, as the song grew louder, there came a half-dancing, half-marching file of splendid-looking, robust bees, moving spiritedly directly toward the royal cell. They were a fine-looking lot, these drones, these dandy drones, and Nuova had a thrill she had never felt before. She gazed at them entranced.
The drones made a half-circle about the cell of the Princess and lined up there, strutting and dancing and singing loudly. This is the song they sang: