“It was long ago,” Zeinab said, “at the dawn of the garden, when all bees lived alike and gathered nectar in peace and abundance. There were other schisms that came later, between the true bees and the bumblebees, for instance, or the carpenter bees as you have already seen. But before all of these, the gravest falling away was brought about by overweening pride.
In those days, the greatest and richest hives were those of the Thousands, also called the Armies or else the Workers. More diligent than other tribes, more regimented, they built enormous hives that extended up to the height of the trees, some even say beyond. They had so much brood that their numbers filled the sky, and their honey overflowed into the garden, so even bees of other tribes who found work not to their liking could scoop up the excess.
But the queens of the Thousands were greedy, and not content with gathering the nectar of every flower that bloomed in the daytime, until only gleanings were left for the other tribes nearby, they met together in secret (for in those days the queens could travel abroad even after mating) and agreed that they would send their daughters out to gather the nectar that blooms at night as well.
Now, this is a forbidden thing, as all bees knew, to venture forth at night, for that is when the Great Queen makes her sacred voyage across the sky, and a curse lies upon any bee who dares to gaze upon her beauty. But the Workers, as they called themselves, recked this not, and conspired to gather the moonflower’s nectar.
And so it was that on a certain day, the Worker queens kept back their foragers from gathering in the day, and only sent them out when the last honeyed rays of the sun had faded.
The other bees, fewer and poorer at that time, did not see what happened to the Armies, their distant cousins; however in the days that followed they realized that the garden was far quieter, where the drone of the Thousands had once filled the air. The sky was no longer dimmed by their multitudes flying back and forth. The bees that remained, fearful to know what had happened, and fearful lest it befall them as well, only gradually began to explore the territory once dominated by the Thousands. Little by little they expanded into the spaces left by their betters, and found to their dismay that their towering hives were silent and empty, the brood cells torn open in haste, or else abandoned part-grown; stores of honey as well were found, oceans of it, gathered by the Thousands only to be supped by strangers from a lesser hive.
It was only from the beetles, slugs and other riffraff that the bees finally learned what had happened. They had not been part of the queens’ conspiracy (the queens of the Workers, that is) and did not see what happened, as they were humble bees and knew their place. But a moth who saw it all told them, how the Workers had swarmed out of their hives after dark, which was a thing no creature had ever seen before, and how when they were gathering nectar from the white moonflower, the Great Queen came up from the eastern horizon and found the bees and their queens all at work.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked them, and they said nothing. So the Great Queen came near and called the queens to her and said this:
‘Because you were haughty, and did not heed the words of your nurses or your own queens, and have gone out after dark when bees should be at rest, and have seen me at my nighttime business, which is forbidden to any bee, therefore!
You shall henceforth never live as bees again!
You shall crawl upon the earth or under the earth, and never fly except on your mating flight. You shall no more taste honey, or gather nectar, but shall eat what falls to the ground, and the carcasses of the dead. You shall no more build towering hives, but delve into the heart of the earth. Rather than collect sweet nectar, your daughters will haul dirt, gravel, and sand. You shall make no wax but lay your brood in the dirt. I will greatly reduce the power of your sting, and you will be shorn forever of your fuzz and your stripes.
Since you so loved work, that you would even violate the boundary of night to pursue your labors, henceforth you shall be known as workers only; but the bees whom you despised and forced aside shall have the honor you once possessed, and forage in your fields, make honey in your combs and lay brood among the young you will leave behind.’
This is what the moth told my ancestors, and he and the beetles told how that night the Thousands fell from the air or from the flowers where they hung, and as they struck the earth their wings fell off, and their fuzz blew away in the east wind. The queens who had led them grew fat and long, and could not fly, and stricken with terror the multitude of them fled into holes and cracks of the ground to hide themselves from the Great Queen’s indignation. However a few were sent back to retrieve whatsoever of the brood was grown enough to be carried from their hives, but they left all the honey. So in this way the race of the Ants was born, and my grandmothers’ grandmothers came to rule the garden. And we have never strayed outside after dark, unless delayed by some unavoidable circumstance.”
“That’s a fascinating story, Zeinab,” I said, realizing she had finished.
“Story?” Zeinab replied. “What do you mean? This is history. Stories are make-believe, like what the nurses tell the broodlings.”
“Where I come from,” I explained, “that would be considered mythology, or perhaps theology. History means writing down which kings and presidents ruled when, and what wars they fought. On the other hand, your story is very interesting, since according to what we call ‘natural history,’ bees and ants both belong to an Order called Hymenoptera, meaning membrane-wing.”
“I see,” Zeinab said. “So your kind has a separate category for stories about men, and for stories about bees and ants? I suppose that is not so different from us. We have a whole category of tales just about bumblebees. Like this one: why don’t bumblebees store their honey in wax cells?”
I admitted I had no idea.
“Because, first of all, they are too lazy to make wax; what is more they are greedy and eat the honey before they have a chance to store it. Also, bumblebees cannot count to six, so all of their combs have square cells.” At this Zeinab began shuddering again and would likely have rolled on the floor if dignity and the still-drying glue on her wing had not prevented her.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“Of course not, Beetle. Sorry. But did you say that according to your natural history, ants and bees belong to an order with membranous wings? I cannot say that I am surprised. But still I am a little disappointed, for I had hoped your lore would have more to recommend it. Even a newly hatched worker knows that ants have no wings at all; or else, your science is behind the times, and describes ants as they once were; but even then, it is merely saying what we bees know and what I just recounted to you, that ants and bees were once of one race. But the thing is, our version also tells you how it happened and why. Don’t you think that is better, Zech Palmer?”
Zeinab and I had been sitting in a hollow in the baseboard along the wall of my kitchen, waiting for the glue to dry on her wing. I had found a splinter of wood and used it to spread the glue thinly over the tear in her forewing, working cautiously to avoid gluing the overlapping hindwing to it. She complained quite a bit, for apparently it tickled, but once the glue was smoothed out I was able to prop the hindwing away from the forewing with a stray pebble (how dirty my kitchen floor appeared from an insect’s vantage!) and here we rested.
But now the day was wearing on, and I had an appointment to keep. I bowed politely to Zeinab and explained that I had to go meet Doctor Brown at the birdhouse where he had left me. She nodded in understanding, though I believe she regretted to lose my company, marooned as she was in the kitchen until her wing was fully cured.
I hastened toward the towering door to the garden and crept out of the crack at its base. Restoring my little nail to its place in my shirt, I looked about the garden and mapped out the best path to the base of the birdhouse. I decided that the risk of ambush by hungry creatures in the vegetation argued for a route through the open, where some dried mud and an absence of grass showed the way I had often walked when at my full height.
This only reveals how naive I was, still in the first few days of my life among the small things of this world. No sooner had I stepped five feet from my garden door, but a whooshing sound above and behind me heralded the interference of one house sparrow, of the order Passeriformes, who had spied me from his nest in my eaves.
Overcome by an instinct heretofore unfamiliar to me, I crouched to the ground, and felt the rush of wind at the back of my neck as the sharp talons of the enormous songbird missed me by a mote. I looked up and saw the bird’s back at a small distance as it swooped up, braked in midair, and pivoted to come at me again.
Being a gentleman, as soon as I overcame my first shock I determined that I would not be carried away by despair or by the sparrow, and stood up again. I drew out my nail and held it defiantly pointed at the fast-approaching menace, determined to at least go down fighting if I must make a bird’s dinner, or be regurgitated for his young.
At the last moment, as I strained to keep my eyes open while the spread claws of my foe filled my sight, I was struck forcefully by a crushing weight from the side. I found myself pinned by a massive bulk that shut out the daylight and rendered me almost incapable of breath.
When I did breathe, as I felt the weight retract a little from off my form, I wished I had not. For whatever it was carried with it an unbearable stench, which seemed now to be all about me.
“There, he’s gone,” said a voice. The weight rolled off my waist, off my legs until I was free and could scramble to my feet again. I looked around me and could not see the sparrow, but thought I could hear it scolding from the upper part of the roof.
“Who was that speaking?” I asked, turning around. I saw nobody, but to my right there stood a huge brown mass, spherical in shape, about twice my own height. Still looking around, I chanced to glance upon my own person and saw that my clothes were mostly colored the same as that enormous ball.
“Are you all right?” the strange voice asked again. But now I saw a movement around one side of the ball, and a large black beetle appeared, its head tilted toward the ground and about as broad as my own shoulders. The beetle stood as tall as my own chest, and its body was as wide as my own height as it waddled up to me and extended a stubby antenna.
“Nice to see you,” the beetle said. “Name’s Drut. This is my ball,” he added, tilting his spadelike head toward it as if concealing a secret pride.
“Droot?” I asked, reaching a hand out to shake the proffered antenna.
“Close,” he said. “Drut. Like Foot. Or Put. Watch where you Put your Foot,” he joked, and I tried to pronounce his name again.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “My name is Zech Palmer. I think you just saved my life.”
“Don’t mention it, Zech. Do you mind if I call you Zech?” Drut asked, and it was only at this point that I realized that he, like the bee, was not actually speaking with audible speech but was forming his thoughts as words inside my mind.
“Zech is fine,” I said, musing to myself that the bee Zeinab was the only person in my life who insisted on using my full name. “Can all of the bugs around here talk?”
“Oho,” said Drut. “Bugs, is it? That’s a new one. And what kind of Bug do you imagine I am, Zechy? Lemme guess… A Stink Bug! Haha! No, don’t worry, I don’t take any offense. Some have one way of life, some have another. For me, I’ve learned the secret of contentment, and it is this: everybody has to carry their own load.”
“Hey, I’m sorry, Drut, but I really need to get going,” I said, afraid that the beetle was on the edge of breaking into song.
“Of course you are!” Drut replied. “How about I come with you and show you the way? Everybody in the garden knows you aren’t from around here, the way you walk straight into trouble. Stick with me, and I can make sure you don’t get eaten.”