For example, the surprising thing that Nuova did right away, without thinking twice about it, was to begin talking to the two nurse bees who were cleaning her. What Nuova said, and what was said to her in return, is of no particular interest to us. It was simply commonplace talk, for Nuova's coming out of her cell, her first dizziness, the high walls of cells, the many bees moving about, the spreading-out of Nuova's wings and cleaning her body, and even Nuova's ability to understand things about her and to begin talking right away—all these were taken for granted in the hive as the most usual things in the world, which therefore needed no special exclaiming or talking about. In fact Nuova felt already that, as soon as she was properly clean and dry, she must join the other active bees, who were all busy with the different kinds of work they were doing, and begin work herself. And she felt that she knew just what this first work for her should be. It should be the work of a nurse. And the nurse bees cleaning her seemed to take this for granted too. For one of them soon said:
"I think you had better begin on the other side of the comb; there are enough of us on this side already."
Nuova looked up and down the great comb and then to right and left. The nurse noted this, and added:
"You can get around by going either to the top or the bottom, or to either end."
Nuova thanked her, and decided to crawl down to the bottom, for she could see, far down there, a number of bees moving about industriously cleaning the floor and some others that stood still, apparently on their heads, and kept their wings buzzing like mad. She was not quite sure what this performance meant; and the floor-cleaning, too, seemed a little curious. The fact is that, although bees do seem to know right off about things, they know these things one at a time, as it were; that is, when it is time for them to do a thing, they know pretty well, without any telling, how to do it, but they do not seem to know about other things at the same time. They seem to know things only as the time comes for each special thing to be done. Nuova seemed to know that she should begin working as a nurse, and to know how to do the work, for as soon as she started she did just about as well as any of the nurses, but floor-cleaning, and standing on one's head and fanning one's wings like mad, were not things she knew about yet.
