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ALBERT R. MANN 
 LIBRARY 
 
 New York State Colleges 
 
 OF 
 
 Agriculture and Home Economics 
 
 AT 
 
 Cornell University 
 
 EVERETT FRANKLIN PHILLIPS 
 BEEKEEPING LIBRARY 
 
. Co rnell University Library 
 Nuova, or, The new bee :a story for chil 
 
 3 1924 003 112 889 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003112889 
 
THE Nr 
 
 A Story for CWMrerj 
 of Five to Fifty <^ Iby 
 
 With Son^5 hy 
 
 Mllo Winter 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 Boston and New York 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY VERNON KELLOGG AND 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
TO 
 
 JEAN 
 WHO IS FIVE 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 Most of this that I have written about bees is 
 true: what is not, does not pretend to be. Some 
 of the true part sounds almost Hke a description 
 of what human Hfe might in some respects be, if 
 certain social movements of to-day were followed 
 out to their logical extreme. I suppose that in this 
 Hkeness lies the moral of the book. 
 
 V. K. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. Nuova Appears I 
 
 II. Nuova's First Experiences 7 
 
 III. Nuova as Nurse 16 
 
 IV Nuova sees Some Other Things Done 29 
 
 V. Nuova sees Bee Moth and gets ac- 
 quainted with Beffa 44 
 
 VI. Nuova and Hero, and the Birth of the 
 
 Princess 60 
 
 VII. Nuova goes Outside 78 
 
 VIII. Nuova and Hero again, and a Battle 93 
 
 IX. Hero and Nuova once more, and the 
 
 Great Courting Chase 106 
 
 X. Nuova in the Beautiful Garden 1 1 5 
 
 XI. Hero finds Nuova in the Garden 130 
 
 XII. The Happy Ending 142 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "Nuova, I love you" Colored Frontispiece 
 
 The beginning of a new life for Nuova 4 
 
 Industriously cleaning the floor 12 
 
 "I am so tired," repHed poor Nuova 26 
 
 She would like that kind of work 32 
 
 "What?" she cried. "Well, you really are 
 a stupid bee " 42 
 
 "The stupid one! The faithless one ! " 48 
 
 "Drones work? It is n't done, you know " 62 
 
 There came slowly forth . . . the new Princess 74 
 
 "Beffa, you are sad," said Saggia 80 
 
 Nuova began to clean his wings 96 
 
 Nuova was among the fallen 104 
 
 In the Garden 1 16 
 
 Beffa settled down comfortably 128 
 
 "The Princess is lost! " 146 
 
Kuova 
 
THE NAMES OF THE BEES 
 
 As all the bees of this story are Italian bees, they all, except 
 one, have Italian names. And they should really be spoken 
 as the Italians speak them. Besides, they are prettier that 
 way. Therefore, a list of them, with the proper way to 
 pronounce them, is given here. 
 
 Nuova (noo-o'va) 
 
 Uno (oo'no) 
 
 Due (doo'ay) 
 
 Tre (tray) 
 
 Saggia (saj'jia) 
 
 Mela (may'la) 
 
 Cera (chay'ra) 
 
 Fessa (fess'sa) 
 
 Aria (ah'ri-a) 
 
 Principessa (prin-chee-pess'sa) 
 
 Lotta (lawt'ta) 
 
KIJOVA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Nuova Appears 
 
 NuovA seemed to^be gradually awakening. It 
 would have seemed that way to any one who could 
 have seen her just at this moment, and it seemed 
 that way to Nuova herself. It was just as if one 
 were in a comfortable, warm bed, and began to be 
 conscious of a faint light outside and of soft voices 
 and of other subdued sounds. The light and sounds 
 grow stronger and louder, until, with a start, one 
 is really awake, and sees that the light is the sun- 
 light of a beautiful morning coming in at the cur- 
 tained window, and recognizes the sounds to be 
 those of the household already busy with a new 
 day's work. 
 
 It was, indeed, an awakening for Nuova ; but it 
 was more. It was the beginning of a new life for 
 her. Until now she had been in a sort of polly- 
 wog stage for a bee — a stage in which she had no 
 
2 Miiova, or The JYew Bee 
 
 legs nor wings, and in which she could do noth- 
 ing for herself at all, not even as much as a 
 pollywog can — and had lain all the time in a long, 
 narrow, six-walled, waxen cell that was bed and 
 room all in one. That is, we might say, she had 
 always so far in her life been in bed. 
 
 For when she was born in her cell, she was just 
 a tiny white thing, without wings or legs, blind, 
 and quite helpless. Really about all she could do 
 was to squirm a little in her horizontal cell, and 
 keep opening her mouth when she was hungry 
 to let somebody know she must be fed. She was 
 immediately taken care of, however, by the nurse 
 bees who kept near the nursery cells all the time 
 except when they had to go to the pantry cells for 
 more food for the babies. This food was flower 
 nectar and pollen that had been brought into the 
 hive by the active forager bees and stored in the 
 pantry cells. The nurses made a sort of very good 
 and nutritious jelly out of it which made Nuova 
 grow very fast. 
 
 After she had been fed in this way for five days, 
 she was many times larger than she had been at 
 first. At the end of this time, however, the nurse 
 
J^uova Appears 3 
 
 bees did what might seem, at first thought, a rather 
 heartless thing. They made a thin cap or cover 
 of wax over the open mouth of Nuova's cell, thus 
 shutting her up tight in her bedroom. She was so 
 large that she almost filled her cell, but there was 
 still a little room left, and this the nurses filled, 
 just before putting the waxen cap on the cell, 
 with pollen and nectar mixed. For a few days 
 Nuova lay quietly in her dark, sealed-up cell, 
 eating, when hungry, from the lump of pollen and 
 nectar which lay by her side. And then she stopped 
 eating and simply lay there in a sort of trance for 
 several days more. 
 
 To Nuova herself all her life in the cell, from 
 first day to last, must have seemed little more 
 than a sort of dream ; a confused dream of not 
 being able to walk or fly, or see or hear, but only 
 to squirm a little, and be hungry and then be fed, 
 and to feel dimly strange growing pains from the 
 rapidly growing legs and wings when they began 
 to come, and of always being rather comfortably 
 warm and sleepy. 
 
 But this sleeping time had come to an end 
 now ; this helpless polly wog stage was finished 
 
4 JSfuova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 for Nuova. And the light she saw through the 
 big eyes that had grown out on her head, during 
 the last few days in the shut-up cell, was the faint 
 but real light of a new day filtering its way 
 through the crowded hive. And the sounds she 
 heard by means of the many tiny little hearing 
 organs on the long, delicate, sensitive feelers, or 
 antennae, that had also grown out near her eyes 
 and were connected by fine nerves with her 
 brain, were the humming and murmuring of the 
 thousands of industrious bees of the hive who 
 were already at work at their various duties all 
 around her. 
 
 Nuova's awaking, then, was much more than 
 the mere waking-up after a night's sleeping. It 
 was the waking from a life of doing nothing but 
 lying in bed and sleeping and eating and grow- 
 ing, to a life of taking care of one's self and help- 
 ing to take care of others ; it was the waking 
 from a baby life to real bee life. For Nuova was 
 now a full-grown bee, with all the wonderful 
 body and all the wonderful instincts and the high 
 intelligence that we know bees to have. But she 
 was still shut up in her nursery cell. 
 
The bcrfinnintr of a ne-w life £or Nuova 
 
JSTuova Appears 5 
 
 However, to escape from it was not difficult. 
 She could see that the faint light came in strong- 
 est through the capped end of the cell. The waxen 
 cap was the thinnest part of the walls of her 
 room, and as Nuova's head was already lying 
 close to the cap, it was a simple and easy matter 
 for her to begin biting it away with her two 
 strong, little, trowel-like teeth. In a few moments 
 she had made a little hole in the cap, and the 
 light and sounds came in suddenly much brighter 
 and louder than before, although the light was 
 really not bright at all nor the sounds loud, as we 
 reckon such things. For the inside of a honey- 
 bee's house, the hive, is always pretty dark, and 
 the sounds the bees make are not all loud, except 
 occasionally when things are especially exciting 
 and all the bees are buzzing together at once, or 
 when a princess is about to come from her nur- 
 sery cell and both she and the old queen do a lot 
 of extraordinary trumpeting. 
 
 But to Nuova, biting her way out through the 
 thin wax cap of her cell, having never heard nor 
 seen anything at all through all of her baby life, 
 things seemed very bright and noisy indeed. This, 
 
6 JVuova, or The JsFew Bee 
 
 however, instead of frightening her, made her only 
 the more anxious to get out and be a part of 
 this exciting world around her, and so she worked 
 away as fast as she could, until suddenly the hole 
 was large enough for her to crawl out. This she 
 did, feeling, we may imagine, rather strange at 
 using her new legs for the first time, and finding 
 her new wings all folded up and rather damp and 
 heavy. But out she came and, with a long breath 
 or two, she started to walk over the uneven sur- 
 face of the waxen comb in which her nursery cell 
 was situated. But after only a few steps she felt 
 tired and limp. Indeed she was limp, for all the 
 outer part of her body, that was later to be firm 
 and strong, was still rather soft and damp and 
 weak; her legs could not hold her up well yet, 
 and her unexercised muscles needed a little prac- 
 tice to work together just right. So she soon 
 stopped, trembling all over from her unwonted 
 exertion, and let her big eyes gradually take in 
 the strange sight about her. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Nuova's First Experiences 
 
 It was truly a remarkable sight. She found that 
 she was part way up a vertical wall or comb of 
 waxen cells, each of six sides and all lying hori- 
 zontally in the wall. This wall of cells towered 
 far above her even to the very roof of the hive, 
 and below her it stretched away down to the floor. 
 Facing it towered another similar wall of cells, 
 and there was but little more space between the 
 two than was needed for the free movement of the 
 scores, aye, even hundreds of bees that were clam- 
 bering about over the opposite faces of the walls. 
 In each wall some of the cells were open and 
 some capped over. In the open ones were either 
 baby bees lying on their stomachs with their 
 heads near the opening of the cells, and their 
 mouths opening and shutting in a most comical 
 way, or there was some pollen or honey; or there 
 was nothing at all. The cells with babies in them 
 were those in the middle part of the wall, while 
 around these were the food cells. Near the open 
 
8 JSfuova, or The J^ew Bee 
 
 nursery cells were many capped ones, and Nuova 
 saw that some of these caps were being gnawed 
 through from the inside. She knew what that 
 meant ; she had just been doing that herself. But 
 also near the open and half-filled pollen and honey 
 cells were other capped ones, and Nuova guessed, 
 and quite rightly, that these were filled and sealed- 
 up honey cells. The open pollen cells were pretty 
 to look at because the pollen in them was of dif- 
 ferent colors, yellow, orange, red, etc., and they 
 made a sort of uneven but attractive color-pattern 
 on the face of the great vertical wall. 
 
 Nuova was a little dizzy at first, with looking 
 up and down the towering wall, and she had to 
 hang on tightly to keep from falling. But she soon 
 grew accustomed to the great heights above and 
 below her, and even began to feel quite at home in 
 her peculiar situation. A pang of hunger came to 
 her as she saw a bee walk up to an open honey cell 
 and take a long drink. She started to walk toward 
 the same cell, when she felt a tug at one of her 
 wings, and heard an impatient voice, evidently 
 addressing her. 
 
 "Here, wait a minute; we haven't got you 
 
jSTuova's First Experiences 9 
 
 clean yet; and your wings are n't half dry. Don't 
 be in a hurry I" 
 
 Nuova was startled ; remember, it was the first 
 bee-talking, or any kind of talking, she had ever 
 heard. Yet she understood it perfectly, and under- 
 stood at once, too, just what was going on. For 
 as she turned her head to see who was speaking, 
 she saw that two nurse bees were most industri- 
 ously cleaning her body all over, and unfolding 
 and smoothing out her wings, so that they would 
 dry rapidly, and dry all properly spread out. 
 Sometimes young bees do not get their wings 
 properly spread before they dry, and then their 
 wings are crumpled up and useless all through 
 their lives. 
 
 Nuova had, indeed, for some time rather vaguely 
 felt this gentle cleaning and wing-spreading oper- 
 ation going on, but at first she had felt so dizzy and 
 faint, and then when she felt better had become so 
 intent on looking up and down the two great walls 
 of wax, with their various cells and the many ac- 
 tive bees moving about over them, that she had 
 paid no attention to the gentle rubbing and pull- 
 ing and stretching. Indeed, it was done so gently 
 
I o JSTuova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 that unless she had started to walk away, or had 
 accidentally looked around, she might not have 
 known that it was going on at all. It was a per- 
 formance much like that a just-born kitten goes 
 through at the hands, or rather tongue, of its 
 mother. The pollen and honey, put into her cell 
 when it was capped, had, of course, rather soiled 
 Nuova's body and much of her hair was stuck 
 together by it. So like every young bee, just come 
 from its nursery cell, she needed a good cleaning. 
 And she was getting it. 
 
 Without thinking twice about it Nuova did a 
 very surprising thing. Or rather it was not sur- 
 prising for a bee to do, but it would have been if 
 one of us, just born, as it were, and without any 
 teaching or practice or chance of hearing any one 
 else first, should do it. For we always call sur- 
 prising, in bees or other creatures, what would 
 be surprising 'in us, which is a rather silly way 
 of judging things, but one we are all very much 
 given to. As we think we are the most impor- 
 tant kind of creatures on earth — as certainly 
 we are, to ourselves — we think our ways of do- 
 ing things are the usual or normal or even best 
 
JSTuova's First Experiences 1 1 
 
 ways, and all other ways " surprising." But we 
 shall find, the more we learn about Nuova, that 
 bees have their own manner of life and ways of 
 doing things, and one of the most important many 
 differences between their ways and our ways is 
 that they know so many things right off without 
 any learning or practice or imitating of others. 
 They are born knowing how ; they do not have 
 to be taught. 
 
 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 inter- 
 est to us. It was simply commonplace talk, for 
 Nuova's coming out of her cell, her first dizzi- 
 ness, the high walls of cells, the many bees mov- 
 ing 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 
 
1 2 JSTuova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 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-clean- 
 
Indus triou.sly cleanintf the floor 
 
JVuovaJs First Experiences 1 3 
 
 ing, 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 tell- 
 ing, 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. 
 
 She worked her way carefully down to the 
 bottom of the comb and found herself in a very 
 busy place indeed. There was a free place under 
 this comb and under the one opposite to it as 
 well. When she looked under the comb which 
 she had just walked down, she saw a great, low- 
 ceilinged place stretching away in all directions, 
 rather dim and getting darker the farther away it 
 extended, except in one direction. In this direc- 
 
14 Muova, or The Mew Bee 
 
 tion, however, it was lighter, and the farther the 
 distance the hghter it was. From this Hghtest 
 part many bees were hurrying toward her with 
 great loads of vari-colored pollen in their pollen 
 baskets, or with their honey sacs filled to overflow- 
 ing with fresh nectar. They hurried on, paying no 
 attention to any one, and disappeared one by one 
 by climbing up and out of sight, except the few that 
 climbed up the face of either of the combs that 
 towered just over her. These bees she could still 
 watch, and she could see that they carried their 
 loads far up to the open food cells into which they 
 emptied the food they had brought. Also she saw 
 other bees, without loads, hurrying along the floor 
 toward the light, and she had a wonderful thrill 
 as she saw them, and something within her urged 
 her to run with them toward the distant light; 
 something inside her that sang of sunshine, blue 
 sky, green grass and bushes, and many-hued fra- 
 grant flowers. But something else, even stronger, 
 within her, told her not to go; that her work 
 awaited her close at hand ; that she must nurse 
 bee-babies here in the dimly lighted hive. 
 
 So she turned away from the alluring light 
 
J^uovoLS First Experiences 1 5 
 
 with only a glance at the floor-cleaners and the 
 silly bees on their heads with their wings going 
 like mad. So strong within her had grown the 
 feeling that there was just one thing for her now, 
 that she walked under the broad, lower edge of 
 the comb from whose high wall she had descended 
 and came into the bottom of another high space 
 between two other towering walls of waxen cells. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Nuova as Nurse 
 
 When Nuova had come into this new high space, 
 she looked up and reahzed that one of its side 
 walls was simply the other side of the comb in 
 which her nursery cell had been, while the other 
 was that of another comb opposite it, just as she 
 had seen that there was another comb opposite its 
 other side. Nuova, seeing this^ easily understood 
 that probably this was the arrangement all through 
 the hive, and that the broad and long, low, free 
 space running through the whole hive just above 
 the floor was a space just underneath the lower 
 edges of many great vertical combs standing side 
 by side. Which, of course, was true. 
 
 Right away, however, Nuova saw that one of 
 the walls above her was incomplete; it did not 
 reach, along its whole length, from the ceihng 
 clear to the floor, but at one end, the end toward 
 the lighter end of the hive, it came down but a 
 little way from the ceiling. Clinging to this un- 
 finished part of the wall was a great mass of bees. 
 
Muova as Murse 1 7 
 
 the upper ones hanging to the free edge of the 
 wall, but the ones below clinging to them and to 
 each other, thus forming a festoon or curtain of 
 bees hanging down from the lower edge of the 
 incomplete wall. Many bees in this living curtain 
 were buzzing their wings violently, while others 
 were quiet, with thin sheets or plates of some shin- 
 ing, silver-yellowish substance forming on the 
 under side of their bodies. 
 
 Beneath the lower edge of the bee-curtain there 
 was a broad, free space beyond which the verti- 
 cal wall of another more distant comb appeared. 
 On the floor in this open space were gathered 
 many bees, most of which appeared to be pick- 
 ing up httle pieces of the shining, silver-yellowish 
 substance that had broken off from the bees.in the 
 festoon above, and fallen to the floor. 
 
 As this open space was lighter than the space 
 she had come from, Nuova could see everything 
 quite clearly here, and the activity of all the bees 
 and their concentration on whatever they were 
 doing impressed her very much. No one so much 
 as spoke to her ; no one spoke to any one else ; 
 but every one worked away for dear life. It made 
 
1 8 JYuova, or The JSPew Bee 
 
 her feel that she must get at her own work just 
 as soon as possible. 
 
 She glanced up the part of the wall that was all 
 finished, and saw toward its middle a group of 
 nurse bees, and a lot of open and capped nursery 
 cells. She could even see, sticking out of some 
 of the open ones, the comical heads of the babies, 
 each with its mouth regularly opening and shut- 
 ting. And then she heard a song, a gentle lullaby 
 sort of song. It was the nurse bees singing as they 
 worked. This is the song they sang : 
 
 We watch beside the cradles 
 
 When the bee-babies sleep; 
 We guard the shining pantries 
 
 Where the bee-milk we keep. 
 
 And when the countless tiny 
 Bee-mouths open wide, 
 J We rush with drink and bee-bread 
 
 And drop them Inside. 
 
 Our bread's the daintiest morsel 
 
 A wee babe could eat; 
 We knead It of soft pollen 
 
 And flower nectar sweet. 
 
JYuova as JYurse 19 
 
 When ends our busy bee-day 
 
 The nurseries we right, 
 Then wash our countless bee-mites 
 
 And tuck them in tight. 
 
 Just try to feed our family, 
 
 And swiftly you'll see 
 That never were there nurses 
 
 So busy as we. 
 
 So she started to climb up to them. Just as she 
 had gone a httle way up, however, her attention 
 was called to a very active and apparently excited 
 group of bees crowding about a very different sort 
 of cell from the ones that made up all the rest of 
 the comb. This was five or six times as large as 
 any of the others, and not six-sided, but shaped 
 something like a pear with its small end down. It 
 did not lie horizontal in the comb, but vertical, or 
 nearly so, and had a rough, thick wall, and was 
 open at its smaller, lower end. Nuova could not 
 see what was in it, for she was already as high or 
 higher than it was, as it was near the lower edge 
 of the comb, its lower end, indeed, being but a 
 little way above the floor. 
 
 As she hesitated a moment, attracted by the 
 
20 JSTuova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 sight of the strange cell and the many excited 
 bees about it, most of whom were nurses, she 
 heard a bee, hurrying away from the cell, say to 
 another hurrying toward it : 
 
 "How fast the princess is growing!" 
 This did not enlighten Nuova much, but the 
 feeling inside of her was now so strong that she 
 must begin work at once that she hurried on up 
 to the nursery cells lying a little way above the 
 curious large cell without trying to find out any- 
 thing about it. Which shows again, of course, 
 how different bees are from us. 
 
 When Nuova got to the nursery cells with their 
 hungry babies she went right to work. She seemed 
 to know just what to do ; to go to the pollen and 
 honey cells and drink honey and eat pollen and 
 swallow them, but not too far, and then wait a 
 few minutes, and then give this food up again, all 
 properly mixed, through her mouth right into the 
 open mouths of the hungry babies. And she knew 
 just what babies were ready to have their cells 
 capped with wax — with a nice little lump of food 
 stored inside first, of course — and how to call 
 some bee with a pellet of wax in its mouth to do 
 
JsTuova as JsTurse 
 
 21 
 
 the capping. She understood at once that the 
 shining, silver-yellowish plates on the bodies of 
 the bees in the festoon at the end of the comb were 
 wax, and that the pieces being picked up by other 
 bees from the floor underneath the festoon were 
 to be used for capping cells, and for making new 
 cells where the vertical wall of comb was still in- 
 complete. 
 
 All these things, and whatever other new ones 
 came up in the next few days in connection with 
 taking care of the babies, she seemed to under- 
 stand right away, and indeed she seemed to know 
 how to do all her work without having to reason 
 about it, or to observe and draw conclusions ; in 
 fact, without even once really having to think 
 about it at all. And because it was all so simple, 
 and so easy to understand, an extraordinary thing 
 came to pass with Nuova ; that is, an extraordinary 
 thing for a bee. The thing was that Nuova got 
 tired of her work I 
 
 Yes, she got tired of it; tired physically, which 
 is not perhaps so extraordinary, for bees some- 
 times fall dead from being over-tired physically ; 
 but she also got tired and impatient of the sim- 
 
22 JVuova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 plicity and monotony of what she was doing. She 
 got, I suppose we may fairly say, mentally and 
 spiritually tired of it. Which happening marks 
 Nuova as a bee of a strange and rare kind : a bee 
 that is — is — well, all I can say is, a bee that is 
 different. Other bees, if they had known of it, 
 would have called her a "funny" bee, or a "pecul- 
 iar" bee; or perhaps something worse. Indeed, 
 this something worse is just what she was soon 
 called. For Nuova, after a few days of this steady 
 care of babies, one hot afternoon — the hive was 
 so set in the garden that it was quite exposed to 
 the sun — Nuova, I say, one hot afternoon stopped 
 working, and crawled slowly down past the great 
 pear-shaped cell clear to the lower edge of the 
 comb and there she sat and simply did nothing ! 
 Pretty soon Uno, one of the nurse bees in 
 Nuova's group, who had already shown herself to 
 have a rather spiteful nature, noticed that Nuova 
 was not working, was not, indeed, to be seen any- 
 where about the nurse cells. So she touched an- 
 other nurse bee near her, named Due, with her 
 antennae so as to call her attention, and said in a 
 low voice : "Where is Nuova? " 
 
JsTuova as JSfurse 23 
 
 Due looked around, and not seeing Nuova, 
 said: "Why, where is she?" Then both bees 
 touched a third nurse bee, named Tre, with their 
 antennae. She turned around and joined them. 
 
 "What's the matter?" she said. Then looking 
 at the group of nurses, she added: "Where is 
 Nuova?" 
 
 "That's it," said Uno and Due together. 
 "Where is Nuova? She isn't here — she has 
 stopped working." 
 
 "Exactly," said Tre. "I thought she would 
 come to that — I 've been noticing her lately. She 
 does n't seem to like to work." 
 
 "Whoever heard of such a bee!" exclaimed 
 Uno and Due together. 
 
 " Let us find her," said Tre. 
 
 So all three started to move around over the 
 comb looking for Nuova. They made wider and 
 wider journeys from the nursery cells, until Uno, 
 who had got down almost to the very bottom of 
 the comb and was quite close to Nuova but had 
 not yet seen her, heard a low voice murmuring, 
 " I am so tired." 
 
 Uno turned quickly and saw Nuova, She was 
 
24 JVuova, or The JSfew Bee 
 
 sitting with her head hanging down on her breast, 
 and she looked very tired and dejected. But that 
 aroused no sympathy in Uno, who, together with 
 Due and Tre, had taken a strong disHke to Nuova, 
 feehng in her, some way, a rather different, even 
 a rather superior sort of bee. Nuova was so un- 
 usually pretty, for one thing. And she had such 
 a lively interest in everything around her. Uno, 
 Due, and Tre, who were bees almost exactly Hke 
 each other, and like most other bees, felt an in- 
 stinctive malice toward her, probably based on a 
 certain envy which they did not, however, even 
 admit to themselves. 
 
 Uno quickly called Due and Tre, and the three 
 stared malevolently at Nuova for a moment and 
 then said together, speaking loudly so that the 
 other bees near by could hear : " Well, what a bee 1 
 To stop work ! Just think of it ! " 
 
 Then Uno leaned over her and called to her: 
 "Lazy!" 
 
 And Due stepped up to her and said: "Loafer!" 
 
 And Tre came up on the other side of her and 
 hissed: "Shirk!" 
 
 Then all three, lifting their wings to strike poor 
 
JSTuova as JSTurse 25 
 
 Nuova, who had sat very still through all this, 
 shrinking from the vicious bees, called out : " We '11 
 teach her I" And then they began to strike her 
 all over with their strong wings. 
 
 It was going pretty badly with Nuova, when 
 an old floor-cleaner named Saggia stepping up to 
 the group shouldered off the three angry nurse 
 bees. Saggia had noticed at other times that 
 Nuova went rather slowly back and forth be- 
 tween the nursery cells and the food cells, but she 
 had a good heart and thought it was because 
 Nuova was sick, perhaps, for bees often get ill just 
 as we do. She spoke to Nuova rather sharply, 
 but still in a kindly way. 
 
 " Nuova! what are you doing here ? You mustn't 
 stop." 
 
 "But I am so tired," replied poor Nuova. 
 "Thank you for driving them away," she added. 
 
 " Tired, nonsense," said Saggia. " That's noth- 
 ing. Of course you are tired. We all are. But 
 what difference does that make ? Go back to the 
 babies, and keep on with your work." 
 
 " That is what they all say," cried Nuova, bit- 
 terly and half angrily. " Here am I a full week 
 
26 JVuova, or The Mew Bee 
 
 out of my nursery cell, and I have n't had a bit 
 of rest or fun yet. It is time I began to have 
 some. Does n't any one ever rest or have a good 
 time ? " 
 
 Saggia was painfully surprised to hear Nuova 
 talk in this manner. She began to fear that Nuova's 
 tiredness was not just physical tiredness. She 
 answered her therefore in a strongly reproving 
 manner. " Of course nobody rests, and of course 
 every one has a good time. Look at them all," and 
 she waved an antenna toward the workers at the 
 nursery cells, "don't you see what a good time 
 they are having? It is having a good time to be 
 always working; always working for each other 
 and for our children." 
 
 "But they aren't our children," Nuova broke 
 in, " yours and mine, that is, nor anybody's but 
 the Queen's children. She is the mother of them 
 all. And she keeps on having more. And we 
 have to take care of them all, and all the time." 
 
 ''T\itY are our children," Saggia interrupted, 
 speaking very positively and still more reprov- 
 ingly. "They are the children of the community; 
 the children of the race. It is our race we are 
 
I am so tired.,' re|3lied j30or Nuova 
 
J^uova as JVurse 27 
 
 working for; the children of the race. Think 
 of it!" 
 
 Nuova made a Httle face. " Well, I am tired 
 of the race and the race's children," she said. "I 
 want some children of my own." 
 
 Old Saggia was dreadfully shocked by this. 
 And she was terrified on Nuova's account for fear 
 some other bees might have heard her. It was, in- 
 deed, about as rebeUious a thing as a bee can say. 
 
 " Hush, child," said Saggia in a whisper. 
 "You mustn't say such things. You mustn't 
 even think them. Other bees don't. And you 
 must hurry back to your work before the others 
 miss you." She helped Nuova up, and urged her 
 to begin climbing back up to the nurse cells. "If 
 you are tired of taking care of the babies you can 
 do something else next week. You will be old 
 enough then to make wax and build cells or help 
 clean the hive. And then in another week you 
 can go out and gather pollen and nectar from the 
 flowers. But go back now to the babies; the 
 other nurses are looking for you." She urged 
 Nuova along again, and this time Nuova started 
 up, but she went very reluctantly and slowly. 
 
28 JVuova, or The J^Tew Bee 
 
 " No," she said, "they pay no attention to me. 
 Nobody but you pays any attention to me, ex- 
 cept when I stop working. They never notice 
 me when I am hard at work." 
 
 "Why, of course not," repHed Saggia gently. 
 "Why should you be noticed then? That is 
 what we all do all the time ; just keep everlast- 
 ingly at it. That is what makes the bees such a 
 great people. There is something wrong about a 
 bee that does n't want to work all the time ; you 
 must n't be different from the others. I am afraid 
 you are sick." 
 
 All the time she was saying this Saggia was 
 urging Nuova along up the comb toward the 
 nursery cells, and now they had quite reached the 
 group of nurses. As Uno, Due, and Tre saw 
 Nuova again they closed in around her so as to 
 strike or pinch her. But Saggia kept them off. 
 And Nuova slipped into her place again in front 
 of a hungry baby. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Nuova sees Some Other Things Done 
 
 Just as Nuova took her place again, however, 
 she heard in the distance a joyful singing. It 
 came from the lightest place in the hive, and 
 looking in this direction Nuova saw a whole 
 group of nectar gatherers coming along together, 
 half-dancing and turning about, and all singing 
 together in the happiest way possible. This is 
 what they sang : 
 
 Take a peep into the pail. 
 
 Nectar to the brim, 
 Carried over down and dale 
 
 Till the ways were dim. 
 
 On a dawn-ray forth we sped, 
 
 A thousand wings in tune, 
 By a new-born wind were led 
 
 Down the paths of June. 
 
 Silvery world of buzz and whirr. 
 
 Fragrance on the wing. 
 Sod and root and blade astir, 
 
 Sped our garnering. 
 
3© JYuova, or The JsTew Bee 
 
 Long in Nature's honey-room 
 We dipped and drank at will ; 
 
 Brushed the purple lilac plume, 
 Sipped from thyme and dill. 
 
 Till when evening softly bore 
 
 Over dune and dell, 
 Hastened we with golden store 
 
 Home to Queen and cell. 
 
 And then she heard another song, and saw a 
 group of pollen gatherers following the nectar 
 gatherers. And this is what they sang : 
 
 Here's saffron dust and crimson dust, 
 
 And dust of rarest blue; 
 In lavish Nature's pollen mines 
 
 Each mines his favorite hue. 
 
 Some buzzed and burrowed all the morn 
 
 Within a clover hold. 
 Till fuzzy backs were powdered fine 
 
 And thigh-bags bulged with gold. 
 
 And some delved deep in lily cups, 
 Or hung from blossomy bells — 
 
 The story of their mazy flight 
 The rainbow treasure tells. 
 
Some Other Things Done 3 1 
 
 There's pollen sweet for roof and wall, 
 
 And more for soft bee-bread ; 
 For all, from wondrous Mother-Queen 
 
 To bee-mite, must be fed. 
 
 Here's palest pink and lilac dust. 
 And green and brown and blue; 
 
 In lavish Nature's pollen fields 
 Each finds his favorite hue. 
 
 They liked their work, these foragers, that was 
 sure, and Nuova felt that she would like that 
 kind of work too. Just then Mela, one of the 
 pollen gatherers, climbing up the comb where 
 Nuova was, with her pollen baskets filled by two 
 great masses of golden yellow pollen, stopped for 
 a moment for breath. Nuova stretched her an- 
 tenna toward Mela and touched her, attracting her 
 attention. 
 
 "Oh, Mela, tell me about.it," she said to her 
 eagerly. " Do you hear the birds sing and see 
 the butterflies dance out there? Mela, take mc 
 with you when you go back." 
 
 Mela was very much astonished to hear a 
 pretty young nurse bee talk to her this way, and 
 
3 2 Muova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 she looked first sharply and then rather contemp- 
 tuously at Nuova. 
 
 "You upstart young thing," she said, "take 
 you out with us ? Well, I rather think not until 
 you have finished your nursing work. And you 
 are loafing now! Well, you will do your work 
 better in the hive or you can never go out at all, 
 that's sure." 
 
 And Uno, Due, and Tre, who had overheard 
 this conversation, buzzed at her one after another: 
 " Lazy I Loafer ! Shirk! " and they tried to strike 
 her once more, but Saggia, who had not yet 
 gone down to the floor, again kept them off and 
 whispered rapidly to Nuova : 
 
 "Yes, you shall go out some time. But you 
 must be a good bee and do your work in the 
 hive first, nurse the babies, then help make wax 
 and build cells. So go on with your work now. 
 Hurry, the soldiers are coming, and they have 
 their stings all ready for loafing bees as well as 
 for wasps and black bees that come to rob us. 
 Hurry, hurry 1 " 
 
 Saggia pushed Nuova back into her place, and 
 Uno, Due, and Tre also hurried to their own 
 
She would like/=^^fchat kind of work 
 
Some Other Things Done 33 
 
 places as the marching song of the Amazons 
 was heard. Into the hive and down the long 
 aisles between the great vertical walls of comb 
 they came marching rapidly and brandishing 
 their long, sharp lances all ready for use. This 
 was their song : 
 
 Now fierce black bee and yellow wasp 
 With cunning seek to rush the hive ; 
 
 Up warriors, aim the poisoned dart, 
 Let no bold hornet pass alive! 
 
 Defenders of the golden stores, 
 
 Swoop down upon the robber band, 
 
 No foe escapes the Amazon spears, 
 
 For Hive and Queen we make our stand ! 
 
 As they finished their song the files of the 
 Amazons broke up and the soldiers scattered 
 themselves through the hive, although most of 
 them kept in the lighter part near the entrance. 
 
 In the special quiet that followed the cessation 
 of the song Nuova heard a voice calling loudly 
 from a group of bees near the wax-making fes- 
 toon at the unfinished end of the comb. This 
 group was busily engaged in moulding new cells, 
 
34 JVuova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 using the wax which was being made by the bees 
 in the Hving festoon. 
 
 "Look here," called the voice, which was that 
 of Cera, chief of the cell-builders and wax- 
 makers, "we must have more wax-makers." She 
 waved an antenna toward the festoon. " They 
 can't furnish us wax fast enough. Some of you 
 older nurses come here." 
 
 Nuova who had stopped working and stepped 
 a little out from the group of nurses at Cera's first 
 words, now started quickly to go over to her. 
 Uno, Due, and Tre all called angrily to her and 
 tried to stop her but Nuova easily evaded them 
 and hurried over, with several other nurses fol- 
 lowing, to Cera. 
 
 " Let me make wax," she said eagerly to Cera. 
 
 Cera looked at her, then away and to the others. 
 "You! No, you are too young," she said. Then 
 more loudly to the others: "More wax-makers, 
 I say, and right away." 
 
 But Nuova insisted. "Take me," she urged. 
 " Teach me to make wax." 
 
 Cera stared at her. " What a funny bee ! Teach 
 you I That shows you are not old enough. If you 
 
Some Other Things Done 35 
 
 were you would know without any teaching. Bees 
 don't have to be taught. They simply know how 
 to do everything they need to when the right time 
 comes for doing it. And if they don't know it is 
 because the right time has n't come." 
 
 But Nuova still stood squarely in front of her. 
 Cera stared at her more and more surprised and 
 more and more angry. " Here," she said finally, 
 and very roughly, "keep out of the way. Go back 
 to your babies." 
 
 Nuova fluttered her wings angrily and her sen- 
 sitive antennae trembled. " I won't," she said. " I 
 won't be nurse any more ; I '11 make wax or go 
 out for pollen. Yes, I '11 go out into the garden." 
 
 Then she actually started to run toward the 
 hive entrance, but was promptly stopped by Sag- 
 gia, who had noticed her altercation with Cera and 
 had hurried over. 
 
 Cera who had only half heard Nuova' s angry 
 outburst was nevertheless greatly astonished, and 
 was about to make an indignant reply and to 
 call the attention of the other bees to the auda- 
 cious little rebel, but the candidates to make wax 
 crowded about her so closely and chattered so 
 
36 JVuova, or The JsTew Bee 
 
 distractingly to her that all thought of Nuova 
 was, fortunately, immediately driven out of her 
 mind. 
 
 In the meantime Nuova was tugging away 
 from Saggia, and had even dragged her a little 
 along toward the entrance. But Saggia held fast 
 to one wing, and at the same time talked to her 
 rapidly. 
 
 " Nuova, stop! " she said in a low voice, at the 
 same time glancing back to see if the crowd around 
 Cera was noticing them. " You mustn't say such 
 things. Bees never do. Listen, you can make wax. 
 Listen to me, I '11 tell you what to do." 
 
 Nuova stopped tugging at the poor old bee, 
 who was getting rather breathless and could 
 hardly go on with her speaking. What she had 
 last said, however, made Nuova want to hear more. 
 
 So as Nuova stopped pulling away Saggia went 
 on talking. " The first thing the wax-makers do 
 is to go to the pantry cells and eat all the honey and 
 pollen they can. Then they all crowd together in 
 close rows like that," pointing to the festoon of 
 wax-makers, "so as to get very warm, and pretty 
 soon the wax begins to come. It comes out in Httle 
 
Some Other Things Done 3 7 
 
 drops on your wax-plates " —touching one of the 
 ten curious Httle five-sided plates on the under side 
 of Nuova's body — " and hardens right away into 
 a thin sheet of wax on each one of the plates. Now 
 all you have to do is to keep quiet and just mix 
 with the others when they go to the food cells to 
 eat and drink. Say nothing to any one, and nobody 
 will pay any attention to you, not even Cera, as 
 long as you are busy. There, see, they are going," 
 she added, as the group around Cera began to 
 break up, some of the bees going back to the babies 
 while others, who had been accepted by Cera, 
 moved to the open food cells and began eating pol- 
 len greedily and taking long drinks of honey. 
 
 " 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 
 
3 8 JVuova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 wax-makers from which it came she saw that 
 under the direction of Cera who had already re- 
 joined 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 fes- 
 toon 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. 
 
Some Other Things Done 3 9 
 
 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 clean- 
 ers to come. "Here," she cried. "Cleaners! Let 
 a cleaner come. We are getting too much dust 
 on the floor. Cleaners I 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," point- 
 ing 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 antennae. As 
 the cleaner looked up Nuova said: "Cera wants 
 
4© JVuova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 you; they are making too much dust over 
 there." 
 
 The cleaner straightened up a Httle and with- 
 out a word shuffled slowly across to a place just 
 under the festoon and began to clean the floor 
 there. Nuova started to follow her, rather daw- 
 dling along, for the prospect of hanging motionless 
 in a wax-making festoon was not especially at- 
 tractive to her, when she was startled by the fall- 
 ing at her feet of a lump of something soft and 
 sticky-looking. She looked up and saw far up on 
 the vertical wall of the comb rising above her a 
 bee peering down at her and the lump. This bee 
 was indeed right up by the roof of the hive. As the 
 bee saw Nuova look up she called to her loudly 
 and rather gruffly, " I say, pretty young bee, bring 
 me up that lump of propolis, won't you?" 
 
 Nuova picked up the soft brownish ball in her 
 mouth and climbed quickly up to the top of the 
 comb with it. As she offered it to the waiting 
 bee on the ceiHng, she found it sticking to her 
 teeth in a very uncomfortable way. 
 
 " Oh, the sticky stuff," she said in disgust, "and 
 how it tastes and smells ! " 
 
Some Other Things Done 41 
 
 The bee to whom she was awkwardly trying 
 to give it, whose name was Fessa, and who was a 
 crack-filler, replied disgustedly and wonderingly: 
 "Oh, the stupid bee. And it smells hke what 
 it is. And that's propolis. And when you've 
 worked with it day and night for a week, as you 
 will sometime, you will learn how to handle it, 
 and not be sickened by its smell. It has really a 
 good healthy smell, for it comes from beautiful 
 great pine trees and balsam firs." 
 
 "Oh," cried Nuova, "from outdoors? From 
 the garden where the flowers and butterflies are? 
 Shan't I go out and get you some ? " And she 
 turned as if to start right away. 
 
 Fessa was much astonished, and as she was 
 an irritable bee, she was angry too. "What?" 
 she cried. "Well, you really are a stupid bee. 
 Go out? You — you silly young thing. Don't 
 you know you can't go out until it is time for 
 you to go ? And then you '11 have to go whether 
 you want to or not. Don't you know that bees 
 do things according to custom ? You don't do 
 what you hke: you like what you do. That's 
 the bee way, you stupid. What kind of bee are 
 
42 JsCuova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 you, anyway? Here now, hand over that stuff, 
 and go back to your work." And Fessa took the 
 last of the propolis from her very roughly. 
 
 Nuova, who did not like to be handled so 
 roughly, and talked to so sharply, was almost in 
 tears. She seemed to be always getting reproved. 
 However, she said rather maliciously to Fessa: 
 "Well, do you like to work with that sticky 
 stuff? What do you do with it, anyway ? " 
 
 But Fessa had already turned back to her work 
 and paid no attention to her. In fact she had already 
 begun, with her two or three other crack-filling 
 companions, to sing a slow, " sticky " sort of song, 
 as they kept stuffing propolis into a crack in the 
 roof Although I cannot give you the strange, mo- 
 notonous melody of the song, I can give you the 
 words. They were these : 
 
 We're the soft putty crew. 
 Dripping the oozy glue. 
 Squeezing our resins through 
 Cranny and crack. 
 
 Stuffing with pure cement 
 Crevice and chink and rent, 
 
^i ,/ ''what ? 'ihe cried, "Well, 
 WM/,, yourealTyare a 3tu]3ld bee " 
 
Some Other Things Done 43 
 
 Where creeping airs have sent 
 Warning of Bee Moth bent 
 On sly attack. 
 
 Yes, we are the safety crew, 
 Spreading with trowel true 
 Fragrant and golden glue, 
 Gumming each crack. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Nuova sees Bee Moth and gets acquainted 
 with Beffa 
 
 As the crack-fillers kept on singing their monoto- 
 nous song over and over while they worked, and 
 as they paid no attention whatever to Nuova, she 
 turned away after a few minutes of listening to 
 them, and stared around her. 
 
 It was the first time she had been clear up to 
 the roof of the hive and she saw that here, as at 
 the bottom, there was a low, free space for the 
 whole length and breadth of the hive. It was rather 
 dark up here, and very warm and stuffy, for the 
 warm air rising from the body of the hive could 
 not escape, as the propolis workers had filled all 
 of the crevices and cracks in the roof and where 
 the great flat roof-board rested on the vertical sides 
 of the hive. 
 
 Nuova felt glad she was not a crack-filler, and 
 turned to go down to the wax-making group where 
 she belonged, when she saw a curious, dusky- 
 gray creature, not a bee, although with big eyes 
 
JSTuova sees Bee Moth 45 
 
 and long antennae and wings, which are all things 
 that bees have also. But this creature's body was 
 much slenderer than a bee's, its antennae very 
 much longer and slenderer, and its wings not 
 only longer, but covered over, as was the body, 
 with myriads of small scales and hairs. These 
 wings were so folded that they covered all the 
 back and most of the sides of the body and 
 trailed out beyond the tip of the body. The crea- 
 ture was walking rapidly and nervously along the 
 broad, upper edge of the comb on which Nuova 
 stood, and seemed to be quite at home in the dim 
 light of this space just under the roof. 
 
 Nuova stared at the creature a moment, and 
 then began to approach her. But the creature had 
 stepped quickly over the edge and was now run- 
 ning rapidly down the face of the comb. In this 
 lighter place Nuova could see that she was en- 
 gaged in hiding every here and there small, white 
 eggs that she seemed to carry somewhere in her 
 body. She would dart nervously in one direction 
 and then another, hesitating a moment after each 
 swift movement long enough to drop an &gg in an 
 open cell or squeeze it into a crack in the comb. 
 
46 JsTuova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 Nuova, not being able to catch up with the crea- 
 ture, called loudly to her a couple of times. "Who 
 are you? What are you doing?" she cried; but 
 the creature did not reply, but only worked at 
 her egg-hiding the more rapidly. Nuova called 
 to her again, this time so loudly that the atten- 
 tion of several bees in the group of nurses was 
 attracted. 
 
 The minute they saw the creature, they set up 
 a great shouting and began racing after her. 
 
 " Bee Moth! Bee Moth ! After her 1 " they cried. 
 " Call the soldiers ! Amazons ! here! here ! " 
 
 Nuova was amazed at the uproar, and then she 
 was shocked to see how the Amazons and all the 
 bees in fact dashed at the poor Bee Moth and be- 
 gan to tear her literally to pieces. First her long 
 antennae and then her wings were torn off and 
 brandished in the air victoriously, and then her 
 dehcate body was stung and hacked into bits, and 
 the fragments tossed down to the floor to be 
 picked up and thrown out of the hive by the clean- 
 ers. And during all this violent scene, which hor- 
 rified Nuova because, strange as it may seem, she 
 really did not understand the reason for it, all the 
 
J^uova sees Bee Moth 47 
 
 bees kept up the most excited buzzing and ex- 
 claiming. 
 
 " The villain ! " they cried ; " when did she get 
 in ? Has she laid any eggs ? How did she get in? 
 Who saw her first ? Where did she lay her eggs ? " 
 
 Some began now to peer about for the eggs, 
 while others continued to talk and gesticulate. 
 
 Uno, who had been standing silent for a mo- 
 ment as if in thought, suddenly spoke up loudly, 
 while she looked significantly at Nuova. 
 
 " Nuova saw her first," she said; "she called 
 to us." 
 
 At that several of the bees turned to Nuova. 
 
 "Nuova, Nuova, saw her first!" they cried. 
 "Did she lay any eggs? Why didn't you call us 
 sooner ? Did she lay any eggs, we say ? " 
 
 "Why, yes," Nuova answered innocently, "a 
 good many ; all the way from up there" — indicat- 
 ing the top of the comb — ' ' clear down to — to — " 
 and Nuova shuddered so she could not finish. 
 
 With this the bees burst out into a new, violent 
 excitement, and they seemed to be very angry with 
 poor Nuova. " Bee Moth laid a lot of eggs 1 " they 
 shouted. "Nuova saw her! Nuova let her! The 
 
48 JSTuova, or The Jfew Bee 
 
 stupid one ! The faithless one ! Kill her ! Kill her ! " 
 And they crowded around Nuova in a most threat- 
 ening manner, some trying to strike her, and two 
 or three Amazons trying to reach her with their 
 lances. Nuova thought her fate was to be that of 
 Bee Moth's, and it really seemed so for a moment. 
 And then Saggia was heard calling loudly. 
 
 "A crack ! There must be a crack I She must 
 have come in through a crack ! She could n'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 have n't the 
 crack-fillers found it?" 
 
 Then they all began to crowd toward and clamor 
 at the propolis-workers, who, up on their scaffold- 
 ing, scowled down on the mob, seemingly unafraid 
 and unexcited. 
 
 "Well," said Fessa roughly, "find the crack 
 and we '11 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 
 
JSTuova sees Bee Moth 49 
 
 for the eggs and break them or throw them out. 
 Every one that is n'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 ogg 
 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 did n'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 antennae in astonishment and 
 despair. " Nuova, you tre a funny bee. You are 
 
50 JSTuova^ or The JSfew Bee 
 
 so different. What is the matter with you any- 
 way? 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 dan- 
 gerous 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 in- 
 terferes 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 does n'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 
 
jSTuova sees Bee Moth 5 1 
 
 get them for them, and she can't, of course, does 
 n'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?" 
 
 Saggia stared at her; and then, strange as it 
 may seem, even this old bee began to understand 
 a little that Nuova's mind was a bit different from 
 that of the other bees in the hive, and that she had 
 a heart that could be hurt even by the killing of 
 a dangerous enemy of the hive. However, Saggia 
 contented herself with repeating, "Well, you are 
 a funny bee! " and then she urged Nuova again 
 to start up the comb to the group of wax-makers, 
 and went back to see how the search for Bee 
 Moth's eggs was getting on. 
 
 Just as Nuova was about to begin cHmbing up, 
 she heard a strong, buzzing sound near her and 
 found that she was almost stumbling over a bee 
 that was standing in a most odd position, with its 
 head down and almost touching the floor, and its 
 body lifted up at an angle of forty or fifty degrees, 
 and all of its wings going like mad, although it 
 
52 JSTuova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 was not, of course, beating its wings to fly, for it 
 remained constantly in the same position. There 
 were two or three other bees near this one doing 
 the same thing, and farther away, nearer the hive 
 entrance, were two or three more. 
 
 The wing-buzzing bee nearest Nuova, whose 
 name was Aria, seemed to be quite vexed with 
 Nuova, for she said to her sharply: "Look out 
 where you are going, you stupid ! Are you blind 
 and deaf?" 
 
 Nuova was startled, and rather frightened, too, 
 by the sharp speech, but her curiosity was even 
 stronger than her fear. "Good gracious!" she 
 said ; " what are you doing ? " 
 
 "What matter to you what I am doing?" said 
 Aria, in a thick, " buzzy " voice. " I am doing my 
 work — which is more than you seem to be doing. 
 Are n't you bee enough yet to know that each of 
 us has her own appointed work and does it with- 
 out worrying about what others are doing? If we 
 all do our work, then the whole community gets 
 on all right. So if you will look out for your work, 
 I '11 look out for mine." 
 
 Here Aria buzzed more energetically than ever 
 
JVuova sees Bee Moth 53 
 
 for a moment without saying anything. Then she 
 began speaking again, " Still if you have to be 
 told, you pretty little stupid bee, I '11 tell you that 
 I and my companions are ventilating the hive, 
 and if we should stop to loaf and moon about like 
 you, you and all the rest of us would suffocate, 
 that 's what you 'd do." And she stopped talking. 
 But in a moment she began to sing a curious little 
 song which was partly made up of just buzzing 
 and humming, and partly of words. These were the 
 words of her song, in which all the other venti- 
 lating bees joined : 
 
 Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz; 
 
 Back and forth, back and forth, 
 
 Fanning and stirring and driving and churning ; 
 
 Old air we're forcing forth, new air's returning. 
 
 On our heads all the day; 
 
 This is the only way 
 
 We can keep sweet the hive 
 
 And our dear bees alive. 
 
 Whirr, whirr, whirr, whirr; 
 
 Roundabout, roundabout, 
 
 Living fans ceaselessly driving and churning; 
 
 Foul air we're forcing forth, fresh air's returning. 
 
54 J^uova, or The JsTew Bee 
 
 Upside down all the day; 
 Beating our wings away; 
 So we keep sweet the hive 
 And our dear bees alive. 
 
 While the ventilating bees were singing and 
 Nuova stood idly watching and listening to them, 
 a small, old drone bee with crumpled-up, that is, 
 deformed wings, came, half walking and half 
 comically hopping, down the long aisle between 
 the vertical combs from the back and darker part 
 of the hive. He was humming a song to himself 
 as he came along. Beffa was the name of the de- 
 formed bee, and he was the jester of the hive, as 
 could be guessed by his hopping way of walking, 
 and by the words of his song. 
 
 When Nuova heard Beffa singing, she turned 
 toward him, but did not interrupt him. She was 
 ever so much interested in his appearance, and by 
 his sort of hopping dance which he kept up all the 
 time he was singing, and by the song itself, which 
 told her something about him, but not enough. 
 As he stopped singing, Nuova spoke, speaking 
 to herself at first, and then to him. 
 
 " Oh, what a funny bee," she said. " You are a 
 bee, aren't you? " 
 
J^uova and Beffa 55 
 
 Beffa stared at her a moment, then made her a 
 deep, mocking bow and gave a hop or two. " Yes, 
 pretty one, which is, of course, to say, stupid 
 one, I be a bee — just as you be, only not just so, 
 for I be doing my work, which I don't see that 
 you be." Then he hopped comically about, hum- 
 ming to himself the refrain of his song. 
 
 No one, however, paid any attention to him 
 except Nuova, who exclaimed rather petulantly: 
 " Oh, work, work, work; always that word ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Beffa, mockingly bowing and hop- 
 ping about her, "but not always that work"; 
 imitating grotesquely for a moment Nuova's idle 
 attitude. 
 
 " Do you call that hopping and singing work? " 
 indignantly exclaimed Nuova. "Why don't you 
 go and nurse babies?" 
 
 Beffa, who was again at his hopping and hum- 
 ming, stopped a moment to stare at her in sur- 
 prise ; then replied, in a sing-song: " I can't, oh, 
 I can't nurse babies." 
 
 "Then make wax," said Nuova. 
 
 " I can't, oh, I can't make wax," hummed Beffa. 
 
 " Then build a comb, or fill cracks, or clean the 
 
56 JVuova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 floor, or "— and she pointed to the ventilating bees 
 near them — "ventilate," persisted Nuova. 
 
 " I can't," sang again Beffa, "oh, I can't build 
 cells, or fill cracks, or scrub floors, or — " and he 
 broke off" suddenly with a sort of catch in his 
 voice. 
 
 But Nuova blindly persisted. "Well, then, why 
 don't you go out and gather pollen and bring nec- 
 tar; out into the sunshine, out into the garden." 
 
 The poor, deformed bee, now angry, indeed, be- 
 gan 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 Hke to go ! Blind, stupid, brutal one ! " 
 
 When Nuova saw the poor, crumpled-up, use- 
 less 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 antennae. " I 
 
J^uova and Beffa 57 
 
 did n't see ; I did n't understand ; I am so sorry I 
 Won't you forgive me ? Please ? " 
 
 Beffa, though partly appeased, was still half 
 angry, and still spoke bitterly. "Oh, you do un- 
 derstand now 1 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, Hsten i " 
 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, fac- 
 ing 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- 
 
5 8 J^uova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 builders turned their faces intently toward the 
 sound, and even the crack-fillers, far up at the 
 roof, stopped their work and peered down ex- 
 citedly. 
 
 There had come, indeed, one of the most ex- 
 citing 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 des- 
 tined 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- 
 
J^uova and Beffa 59 
 
 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: 
 
 We are the courtiers, the beaux of the hive; 
 
 Of the dandy drones surely you 've heard ! 
 Our wings are a rainbow, our bodies are gold. 
 
 To soil them would be most absurd. 
 
 No, we never mix up with the common hive stuff, 
 Neither garner, nor plaster, nor clean; 
 
 T is superior far to be just what we are, 
 And do naught but make love to the Queen. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Nuova and Hero^ and the Birth of the 
 Princess 
 
 All through their song Nuova had given the 
 drones her absorbed attention. She admired them 
 greatly for their fine appearance, and when she 
 learned firom their song that they did no work, but 
 had all day only to follow their own sweet will, 
 she became especially interested in them. She 
 was a little puzzled, too, for, from what she had 
 heard from Saggia and the others, and from all 
 she had seen, she had come to believe that all bees 
 worked all the time. And here were all these stout- 
 bodied, vigorous bees proudly singing that they 
 loafed all the days through. She was so much 
 interested in this that she approached one end of 
 the line of drones and spoke to the one nearest 
 her. 
 
 "What a fine time you drones must have," 
 she said. " Don't you ever have to do any work ?" 
 
 The drone did not hear her at first and paid no 
 attention to her, but as she repeated her question 
 
JVuova and Hero 6 1 
 
 louder and more insistently, he turned and stared 
 at her amazed. 
 
 " Well, well, bless my eyes ! " he said, stammer- 
 ing in his amazement at being addressed by a 
 common worker bee. "Blessmyeyes! I say, work? 
 Work? Me work? Who ever heard such a ques- 
 tion ? What sort of a bee are you ? Who are you, 
 anyway?" He touched the drone next to him to 
 call his attention. " Look here, who is this bee?" 
 
 Nuova was nettled by his manner and by what 
 he said. She answered, rather sharply, " Well, I '11 
 tell you who I am. I am a bee that works ; any- 
 way, I am the kind of a bee that works, like all 
 the others except you, and you " (looking defiantly 
 at the second drone, who was staring insolently 
 at her) "and I want to know why you do not work 
 — you and you others that loaf around all the time 
 and eat what we bring in, and do nothing but sing 
 and dance in the hive, or fly around doing noth- 
 ing in the garden, and keep all dressed up and 
 just look handsome." 
 
 The drone was more and more astonished, but 
 he was also a little flattered by her reference to 
 his clothes and appearance. 
 
62 JSTuova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 "Well, you are a silly little bee," he said; 
 "that's what we are here for. Drones work? It 
 is n't done, you know. Our business is to love. 
 And singing and dancing and looking handsome, 
 and not getting all dusty with pollen and sticky 
 with wax and dirty with cleaning, is part of it. 
 That's our work; not working, but loving." 
 
 Nuova was so astonished by hearing this, and 
 so excited to learn that some bees did not have 
 to work, and also so angry to think that these 
 bees were allowed to live without working, while 
 she was always being told to work, and scolded 
 for resting for even the shortest time, that when 
 she answered him she spoke so loudly as to at- 
 tract the attention of other bees near her, includ- 
 ing Saggia, who was moving around near by, 
 cleaning the floor. 
 
 "So that is what you call your work, is it?" 
 she burst out. " Well, I am glad to know there 
 is some kind of bee work besides feeding babies 
 and sweating out wax and filling up cracks and 
 scrubbing up floors. Loving, you call it ; well, I 
 want to do some of that; show me how." 
 
 The two drones were stupefied with astonish- 
 

 ' Brones work? 
 U isn't done j'ou, Tknovy . 
 
JYuova and Hero 6^ 
 
 ment by Nuova's words, but the one nearest her, 
 to whom she was speaking directly, was rather 
 taken by the audacity of the pretty Httle bee's 
 demand, and he involuntarily strutted and swag- 
 gered a little and eyed her with special attention. 
 He even smiled down at her rather pleasantly, 
 and seemed to be about to speak to her again 
 when Saggia and three or four other bees, who 
 had heard her last words and were scandalized 
 to see and hear her talking with the drone, espe- 
 cially in such a manner, bustled up to her. 
 
 This last unheard-of behavior of Nuova was 
 too much for Saggia. Her patience and sym- 
 pathy with her were exhausted, and she broke out 
 in a tirade of scolding. 
 
 ''Well, I never in my life I" she exclaimed, 
 grasping Nuova and jerking her around; "what 
 in the world are you doing and saying ? Talking 
 to a drone about love ! You don't know anything 
 about love. You can't know anything about it. 
 Only drones and princesses know what love is, 
 or can know. You are worse than a silly bee ; you 
 are a bad bee I " She jerked her again and again; 
 at the same time she went on with her scolding. 
 
64 Muova, or The J^ew Bee 
 
 "Well, I wash my hands of you! If you can't 
 be a sensible bee we don't want you ! Our think- 
 ing has all been done for us long, long ago. All 
 we have to do is what custom tells us to. And if 
 you can't behave as the rest of us do, you are 
 useless. Here, take her, throw her out of the 
 hive ! " 
 
 Again Saggia jerked her vigorously, and other 
 bees, especially Uno, Due, and Tre, hustled her 
 and struck at her. A couple of soldiers even came 
 up and began jabbing at her with their lances. Poor 
 Nuova seemed about to be torn piecemeal, like 
 the Bee Moth, and turned out of the hive, when 
 one of the drones, who was in the line some little 
 distance from Nuova and Saggia, was attracted 
 by the uproar. He came over to the group in a 
 lordly and leisurely manner, shouldering his way 
 through the crowd and carelessly driving off the 
 jostling bees. They left Nuova reluctantly, cast- 
 ing dark looks and making malevolent gestures 
 toward her as they turned their attention again to 
 the excitement still raging about the cell of the 
 Princess. Poor Nuova, half dead from her ill- 
 treatment, could hardly utter her thanks to her 
 
J^uova and Hero 65 
 
 rescuer. In a weak voice she attempted to say- 
 something, but finding it too much of an effort she 
 contented herself with looking up gratefully into 
 the face of the newcomer. He looked down at her 
 curiously. 
 
 "What is the matter with you?" he said, not 
 unkindly. "Can you not do as other bees do? 
 What are you — a nurse, a wax-maker, or what ? 
 Why don't you stick to your work? Why don't 
 you do what you are expected to do ? Are you 
 one of those dreadful creatures they call 'new 
 bees'?" 
 
 Nuova, although still weak and faint from her 
 jostling and fright, was made angry again by 
 these questions. " I do not know what I am," she 
 said, "but I 'd rather die than be just a puppet in 
 this hive. Is all my life cut out for me, and not 
 according to what I want to do and can do, but 
 just according to rules made by somebody I don't 
 know anything about and who does n't know any- 
 thing about me?" 
 
 She tried to say more, but a faintness came over 
 her, and she staggered a little and would have 
 fallen if the drone had not unconsciously put a 
 
66 Kuova, or The Kew Bee 
 
 wing behind her and supported her. She looked up 
 at him, unable to thank him in words, but express- 
 ing her gratitude in her eyes. 
 
 As she rested this way, leaning heavily against 
 him, she closed her eyes, happy to be protected, 
 and even feeling strange little thrills running over 
 her body that were mysteriously enjoyable. With- 
 out opening her eyes she murmured : " I am very 
 grateful to you. You are very good." He said 
 nothing, but looked with more and more interest 
 at the sweet-faced little bee beside him. 
 
 Soon she opened her eyes again, and this time 
 a pathetic little smile ran over her face. Indeed, it 
 grew to be a roguish smile as an interesting idea 
 formed more and more clearly in her brain. 
 
 "But you," she said — "aren't you rather 
 breaking bee tradition by helping me ? If I am a 
 useless bee, and only in the way, and a trouble 
 to the community, should n't you let them sting 
 me and throw me out of the hive ? Are you " (she 
 smiled again) — "are you, a — new bee, too?" 
 
 The drone, whose name was Hero, and who 
 was truly the handsomest and finest drone in the 
 hive, was first surprised and then a little embar- 
 
JsTuova and Hero 6j 
 
 rassed by what Nuova was saying. He looked 
 rather fearfully around to see if other bees were 
 observing them and tried gently to take his wing 
 from behind Nuova, who, however, on realizing 
 his intention, gave new signs of weakness and 
 leaned more heavily than ever on it. In fact, it must 
 be confessed, she nestled as closely against him, 
 enclosed by his protecting wings, as she could. 
 
 " No, I am not a new bee," he said, rather stiffly. 
 " I know my duty, and I try to do it." He looked 
 again into his companion's pretty face, and then 
 spoke more gently. 
 
 "Still, I admit that some of our ways are old- 
 fashioned, rather absurd in fact," he said, with a 
 manner and voice growing more and more confi- 
 dential. " I have often had a curious feeling as if 
 I should like to work." He smiled down at her. 
 "Terrible, isn't it? And sometimes it is pretty 
 hard to work up a violent love for a Princess you 
 never see until you are just about to dash after 
 her in the Great Courting Chase. Still, that 's some- 
 thing worth while. One such flight is excitement 
 and exertion enough for a whole life." 
 
 " Have you ever done it? " asked Nuova, curi- 
 
68 JVuova, or The J^ew Bee 
 
 ously and even a little enviously. "And did you 
 win?" 
 
 "Yes," said Hero, " I have been in one chase. 
 But I was so young my wings were hardly dry 
 and, of course, I did n't win, or I should n't be 
 here now. Don't you know that the winner always 
 dies in the winning? " 
 
 "Oh, how dreadful I " cried Nuova, shocked. 
 " And how silly ! To die just as you become King. 
 How is it worth it ? " 
 
 "What!" said Hero, surprised, and in a re- 
 proving and even stern voice. " Not worth while 
 to win in the Great Courting Chase? To prove 
 yourself the fastest and strongest and boldest of 
 all the drones, and to be the consort of the Queen, 
 the father of all the Queen's children ? Not worth 
 while dying for? What do I live for but that?" 
 
 "Ah, yes," cried Nuova, carried away for the 
 moment by his enthusiasm, " that is something to 
 live for!" 
 
 Suddenly, however, she realized that if Hero 
 won in the Great Chase that was soon to occur 
 — that is, would take place when the Princess, 
 already trying to get out of her cell, was really 
 
JSTuova and Hero 69 
 
 out and ready for her wedding flight — he would 
 really have to die for a bee, so far unseen and un- 
 known, and who had done nothing to deserve such 
 a sacrifice, and who would give her love as well 
 to any other drone as to Hero, this handsome and 
 kind new friend. 
 
 This made her angry and bitter again, and very 
 sad, too, for she was beginning to realize that she 
 liked this beautiful, strong bee much more than 
 she Hked Saggia or Beffa. He was different from 
 all the other bees she knew, and her liking for 
 him was different. She wanted to be with him all 
 the time, and to have him talk to her or even just 
 to look at her. This must be loving, she thought, 
 or part of it, anyway. She began to dislike this 
 Princess that was soon to come out of her cell. 
 Probably she would be very beautiful. When she 
 thought of that she disliked her more than ever. 
 She could not bear to think of Hero's loving her 
 or of her loving Hero. 
 
 She looked keenly at Hero, and then spoke to 
 him slowly and cautiously, growing suddenly wise 
 because of her new feeling for him. 
 
 " But how do you know you will love the new 
 
7© J^uova, or The JSfew Bee 
 
 Princess?" she said. "Is she certain to be beau- 
 tiful and sweet ? And will she certainly love you ? " 
 
 Hero looked at her curiously. It was strange 
 how this pretty little bee attracted him. And it 
 was strange that she seemed to have very clearly 
 certain thoughts that were already rather hazily 
 in his own mind. 
 
 "Oh, well," he said musingly, " I shall not see 
 much of her. It is not, in a sense, love for her, 
 but the response to the call of the race, the fulfill- 
 ing of my duty to our community, that will drive 
 me to my best effort to win her. But, of course, 
 it is love for her, too ; that is, so far as there is 
 love at all among bees. We can love only Prin- 
 cesses, you know, we drones ; that is honey-bee 
 tradition." 
 
 Hero had seen no betrayal of Nuova's real feel- 
 ing in her questions. He only saw in them the 
 expression of her odd, independent way of look- 
 ing at things and thinking about them. Nuova 
 realized this and so became bolder by his blind- 
 ness. And she was made bitter, too, by hearing 
 this hero of hers repeat that always irritating 
 phrase of "honey-bee tradition." 
 
Kuova and Hero 7 1 
 
 "Oh, yes," she exclaimed, "you can only do 
 what your grandfathers and your great-grand- 
 fathers didl You must keep your eyes closed 
 and your heart cold and loll and loaf through all 
 your life until they tell you to go and love — love 
 a Princess — love her, sight unseen — love her so 
 hard that if you win her you kill yourself ! You 
 are not you ; you are not a bee with a heart and 
 brain and strong body of your own, to live and 
 strive and suffer and succeed after your own way 
 and your own desires, but you are a machine, an 
 automaton, to do what custom has fashioned you 
 to do! You are not a bee; you are a clock-work; 
 big and strong and handsome — and hollow ! " 
 
 Hero, amazed at her vehemence and her break- 
 ing of all bee tradition, looked at her more and 
 more interestedly. He found a responsive feeling 
 in himself, not only to the ideas expressed by her 
 words, but to her own attractiveness and bold- 
 ness. 
 
 "Well," he said amazedly, but also sympa- 
 thetically — " well, you are a silly little bee ! " 
 
 But now the excitement around the Princess's 
 cell broke out afresh. She was evidently about 
 
72 JVuova, or The J^ew Bee 
 
 to come forth. From inside her cell she piped 
 more loudly and more often than ever. Suddenly 
 a loud, answering trumpeting was heard, and 
 Beffa came hopping and humming to announce 
 the approach of the old Queen. It was the Queen 
 who was making the answering trumpeting. She 
 came majestically along toward the cell of the 
 Princess with a group of attendant bees about 
 her. These attendants always kept circling slowly, 
 but animatedly, about her, facing toward her, and 
 although constantly shifting and changing places, 
 always maintaining a complete circle around her. 
 Every now and then she gave a loud trumpeting, 
 and each time she was answered by a shrill pip- 
 ing from the cell. Or perhaps it was the old Queen 
 who was defiantly answering the challenges of the 
 Princess. 
 
 All the bees were enormously excited. They 
 moved about constantly, buzzing and grouping 
 in dense masses, now here, now there, but mostly 
 close to the great cell. - They were, however, 
 plainly divided in their feeling, for some of the 
 groups were intent on keeping near the Queen. 
 
 All the drones, however, clustered around the 
 
JVuova and Hero 73 
 
 Princess's cell. Only Hero, who still stood by 
 the side of Nuova a little to one side, had not 
 joined the group of drones which was giving all 
 its attention to the awaited appearance of the 
 Princess. None of them paid the slightest atten- 
 tion to the Queen. 
 
 The excitement steadily increased. It was evi- 
 dent that the climax was at hand. Suddenly a 
 breathless silence succeeded the buzzing whir. 
 All the bees stood still with eyes fastened on the 
 royal cell, and there came slowly forth from it, 
 with beautiful but cold, set face and slow auto- 
 matic movement, the new Princess. 
 
 As she stepped clear of her cell, with long, 
 slender body erect, and shining delicate wings 
 already nearly dry and straight, the whole mass 
 of the bees quivered with renewed excitement. 
 She carried a long, shining silver lance which 
 she held point upward and used to support her 
 first rather uncertain steps. 
 
 The old Queen, staring defiantly at the shining 
 Princess, seemed to realize that the end of her 
 reign had come. But she lifted her own long 
 lance threateningly in the air and gave out a 
 
74 J^uova, or The Mew Bee 
 
 challenging trumpet call that sounded loud through 
 all the hive. 
 
 The Princess, though obviously not yet in full 
 control of her movements because of her long con- 
 finement in the cell, nevertheless faced the threat- 
 ening old Queen with full defiance, and piped back 
 a vigorous answer. 
 
 The Queen seemed to lose all her self-control 
 at this, and stooping a little, and putting her lance 
 in place so that it pointed directly at the Princess, 
 started to rush at her. But a mass of bees threw 
 themselves in front of her, blocking her way and 
 pushing her lance up. 
 
 Thwarted in her intention of killing the Prin- 
 cess or putting her to flight, the old Queen hesi- 
 tated a moment, and then with a loud cry of "Who 
 loves me, follow me to make a new home," she 
 rushed for the opening of the hive followed by a 
 great swarm of worker bees. 
 
 Nuova turned anxiously to Hero to see if he 
 were going to follow the old Queen from the hive. 
 Her own incHnation was to go with her, for she 
 detested the haughty, cold-faced new Princess, 
 both because of her appearance and insolent man- 
 
There came sTovt'ly forth — 
 
 the ne\v Princess 
 
JVuova and Hero 75 
 
 ner and because she felt that Hero would surely 
 win in the Great Courting Chase and hence be- 
 come the Royal Consort of the Princess and have 
 to die for her sake. So she timidly touched him 
 with one of her antennae to attract his attention, 
 which was all being given to the stirring scene 
 before them. 
 
 " Are you going to follow the old Queen ?" she 
 asked, "or stay with the Princess?" 
 
 Hero started, as she spoke, as if awakened from 
 a daze. He looked down at her curiously, as if 
 only half recognizing her. Then he turned again 
 to look intently at the Princess and the group of 
 drones about her. With a quick turn back to 
 Nuova he answered her as if astonished by her 
 question : 
 
 " I shall stay with the Princess of course." 
 Then he straightened up proudly and added : 
 "Indeed, I think she will be my Princess; my 
 Queen." 
 
 He looked toward the Princess again, this time 
 eagerly and bending rather toward her as if im- 
 patient to go to her. And even as he looked toward 
 her, her eyes, moving slowly and proudly over 
 
"j^ JVuova, or The J^ew Bee 
 
 the whole group of bees who had elected to re- 
 main in the hive with her, rested on him, and 
 stopped there. As she saw the handsome drone 
 bending toward her with his eager eyes fixed on 
 her, a slow smile came over her face. It was the first 
 appearance of anything but defiance or cold inso- 
 lence to which she had yet given expression. Both 
 Hero and Nuova saw it. Poor Nuova ! It was too 
 much for her. She could hardly stand. Hero felt 
 her trembling at his side. He turned his face to look 
 down at her, and was astonished and then suddenly 
 touched and even moved to see in her wet eyes 
 the revealed love of this pretty little worker bee 
 for him. 
 
 He spoke to her half curiously, half tenderly. 
 "And are you going with the old Queen, or will 
 you stay here with the Princess ? " he asked. 
 
 " Stay, stay," whispered Nuova, almost sob- 
 bing. " I think — she will be — my — Queen, 
 also." 
 
 As she said this she turned away. Just then 
 the old Queen and the swarm of bees about her 
 rushed from the hive. All the bees remaining began 
 to sing a loud song of gladness and welcome to 
 
JYuova and Hero 77 
 
 the Princess who was to be their new Queen, 
 And they all joined in a mad dance of joy — 
 except Nuova, who hid her tear-stained face 
 and limp body behind the nearest great honey- 
 comb. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Nuova goes Outside 
 
 When Nuova felt that she could face again the 
 scene near the cell, she left her hiding-place and 
 came slowly out into the open space where she 
 had left Hero. He was gone. She knew, without 
 looking, that he was now with the other drones 
 pressing about the cold, proud Princess. She 
 looked rather for her old friends Saggia and BefFa. 
 Though Saggia had lost all patience with her be- 
 cause she had spoken to the drones, and had pun- 
 ished her, and even given her over to Uno, Due, 
 Tre, and the other bees who disliked her, she still 
 liked Saggia and believed that Saggia liked her. 
 
 So she looked around for them. But they were 
 not in the mass about the Princess nor in any of 
 the groups which were beginning to take up again 
 the different kinds of work of the hive. 
 
 Nuova noticed some bees going in and out the 
 entrance hole of the hive, and although she knew, 
 by instinct, that she was still too young to leave 
 the hive, yet that strange driving spirit in her, 
 
JVuova goes Outside 79 
 
 which was always impelling her to do things 
 against bee traditions and custom, urged her to 
 the bright opening. Once there she hesitated. 
 The brilHant sunshine outside was blinding to her 
 eyes, accustomed so far only to the half-light of 
 the hive. She had a curious sensation too, half 
 of fear of this unknown world outside, half of fas- 
 cination to plunge recklessly into it to see and 
 learn the new things there must be in it, and to 
 escape from the automatic, heartless life of the 
 hive, and the latest and bitterest unhappiness this 
 life had just brought to her. 
 
 As she stood, uncertain, at the edge of the 
 opening, she heard a familiar humming just out- 
 side the opening, and at once stepped out. She 
 found herself on a broad platform as wide as the 
 hive and extending forward for what seemed to 
 her a long distance, but which was in reality only 
 a few inches. On either side of the platform and 
 beyond it were grass and flowers and bushes, and 
 still farther away some great trees, all new and 
 wonderful things to her. Above was the blue sky, 
 and she heard birds twittering, and far away the 
 song of a woman working in the garden. And it 
 
8o JYuova, or The J^ew Bee 
 
 was all very light and fresh and fragrant. Nuova 
 liked it. 
 
 She heard the famihar humming again. She 
 turned her attention to the entrance platform. 
 There were only a few bees on it. A few guards 
 moved easily and half-lazily around, and a few 
 foraging bees were coming and going with loads 
 of pollen and honey or with pollen baskets and 
 honey sacs empty. But suddenly she saw Beffa. 
 It was he who was making the familiar hum- 
 ming. With tired, drawn face and with only 
 grimaces for smiles, he was slowly hopping and 
 humming near the front edge of the platform. He 
 often came to a standstill to look with fixed gaze 
 out into the distance. Beffa was a sad bee, for his 
 Queen had gone and he could not follow her. 
 Poor Beffa 1 It made Nuova sad, too, to see him. 
 
 And then she saw Saggia, too. She was at one 
 side of the platform with dustpan and brush, and 
 occasionally stooping over to brush up something. 
 She, too, seemed sad and tired. She looked older 
 than Nuova had seen her look before. Saggia, 
 like Beffa, every now and then stood quite still 
 and gazed far away into the garden or sky as if 
 
'Beffa , you are ^ad/ ^aid ^atfcfia 
 
JVuova goes Outside 8 1 
 
 hoping to see again the old Queen whom they 
 had lost. Saggia and Beffa had come close to- 
 gether without noticing each other or Nuova, so 
 occupied with their own thoughts were they. But 
 soon Saggia noticed Beffa and moved up close to 
 him. 
 
 "Beffa, you arc sad," said Saggia, in a low 
 voice so that only Beffa should hear. 
 
 Even Beffa did not hear her at first, or, at 
 least, he did not heed her. But when Saggia re- 
 peated what she had said, Beffa came out of his 
 reverie with a jerk, and awkwardly made a little 
 hop and grimace. 
 
 "Sad," said he. "Great Apis forfend. Have 
 n't we a shining new Princess to our hive ; a vir- 
 gin new Princess to wed and be a new Queen 
 to us all ? Why should we mourn for an old 
 Queen that's gone? Why be sad with a new 
 Queen to come? Ha-ha," he laughed sardoni- 
 cally and bitterly. 
 
 " Yes, sad," repeated Saggia again, still speak- 
 ing low and significantly, " when we have just 
 lost our old Queen who liked her jester, Beffa, 
 and even her old floor-cleaner, Saggia, who 
 
82 J^uova, or The JSCew Bee 
 
 neither of them know whether the new Queen 
 will like them or not. Oh, sad, sad ! Ha-ha ! " 
 And she half-imitated Beffa's sardonic laugh and 
 his hop and grimace. 
 
 Beffa turned and faced Saggia squarely, sur- 
 prised to find wise old Saggia troubled and de- 
 pressed just as he was. After a long, keen look 
 at her, he made a solemn gesture to the distance, 
 and then a mocking bow toward the hive en- 
 trance. 
 
 " The Queen has passed : long live the Queen ! " 
 he exclaimed. 
 
 Several of the guard and forager bees near him 
 heard his cry and called out after him — 
 
 " The Queen has passed : long live the Queen ! " 
 
 But one old guard of testy temper added, 
 speaking rather roughly to Beffa: "What are 
 you doing here ? Does n't the Princess laugh at 
 your old tricks ? Can't you find some new 
 ones?" 
 
 Beffa turned angrily toward the guard, as if to 
 answer sharply, but suddenly checked himself and 
 began capering and humming. Then he sang in a 
 bitter voice : 
 
JsTuova goes Outside 83 
 
 " Let the guards guard, and the jester jest, 
 
 Let Saggia clean, and the new queen wed. 
 
 Let all the bees do all they did, 
 
 For life is doing what we 're bid. 
 
 Oh, life is doing what we 're bid. 
 
 Ha-ha!" 
 
 Saggia felt a little anxious on Beffa's account, 
 for his song seemed bitter, and she saw that the 
 guard was looking both puzzled and sour as she 
 listened to it. So Saggia spoke to her hurriedly. 
 
 "The odor from our full pantries comes strong 
 from the hives this morning," she said. " I hope 
 it won't attract the Black Bees." 
 
 " Oh, the Black Bees," said the guard, superi- 
 orly. "Let them come. We'll show them how 
 robbers are treated." 
 
 Just as the guard finished speaking, a com- 
 motion began on the other side of the platform, 
 and Nuova saw a large black-and-yellow-striped 
 creature with a long spear lunging fiercely to- 
 ward the entrance of the hive. It was a Yellow 
 Jacket. She knew it at once, because she had 
 heard some of the nurse bees one day talking 
 about these fierce black-and-yellow-banded rob- 
 
84 Muova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 bers that sometimes fought their way into the 
 hive to steal honey. 
 
 The guard near Saggia and Beffa hurried across 
 the platform brandishing her lance. But already 
 three or four other guards had thrown themselves 
 on the intruder and were beating it back, striking 
 it viciously with their lances. The Yellow Jacket 
 made a good fight, but the bee Amazons were 
 too many for it. It was wounded, began to 
 weaken, and soon was hustled back off the plat- 
 form and on through the grass behind a near-by 
 bush. 
 
 The guard who had been talking with Saggia 
 came back proudly to her, still brandishing her 
 long lance. 
 
 "That 's the way we do it," she said. "And a 
 Yellow Jacket is stronger than a Black Bee." 
 
 "Yes," replied Saggia, wagging her old head 
 wisely, "but not stronger than ten Black Bees, or 
 a hundred, and that is the way they come." 
 
 As Saggia finished speaking, the guards who 
 had driven the Yellow Jacket away returned bois- 
 terously, and joining all the other guards on the 
 platform, formed in a hne, and half-marching, 
 
JSTuova goes Outside 85 
 
 half-dancing, went through some mihtary maneu- 
 vers. While they were doing this, another lot of 
 guards came out of the hive, and forming in a line 
 opposite them, also went through the martial dance. 
 At the end of it all the guards who had been out- 
 side marched into the hive, while the new ones re- 
 mained outside on the platform. It was the "relief 
 of the guard." 
 
 All during the guards' dancing and marching, 
 Nuova had stood still watching them intently. 
 Neither Saggia nor Beffa had seen her yet. And 
 she was afraid to speak to them for fear of being 
 made to go back into the hive again. She had 
 made up her mind to stay outside. It was all so 
 much more beautiful and exciting out here. She 
 had decided that she would not be a nurse or 
 wax-maker or anything else inside the hive any 
 longer. She wanted to be a forager and be free to 
 go in and out as she liked, and to fly far out into 
 the garden and spend long, sunshiny hours there. 
 
 Just then, however, Saggia caught sight of her. 
 It was, indeed, Befifa who saw her first. He quietly 
 touched Saggia with one of his antennae and waved 
 the other in Nuova's direction. Saggia hurried 
 
86 Jsfuova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 over to her, looking anxiously around her to see 
 if any other bees had noticed Nuova. 
 
 "What are you doing out here?" whispered 
 Saggia to her as she reached her side. "Who 
 sent you out? It is n't time for a week yet for 
 you to come outside." 
 
 Saggia wanted to be angry with her, but the 
 sight of Nuova, so sad and forlorn-looking, and 
 with tear-marks still on her face, was too much 
 for her kind heart. And she really loved Nuova 
 very much. Indeed, all that Nuova had done, and 
 what she had said, had made a strange appeal 
 to the wise old bee. She was almost frightened 
 sometimes to feel that down deep in her heart she 
 not only sympathized with much of Nuova's re- 
 volt against the rigid traditions and automatic life 
 of the bees, but that she realized that this stifling 
 of all independent action and all personal emotions 
 was not always the way to the highest happiness 
 nor even the wisest conduct for the bees. She 
 shuddered to think that perhaps she, too, was a 
 " new bee." 
 
 Nuova was half-frightened by Saggia's dis- 
 covery of her and by her hard words. But she 
 
J^uova goes Outside 87 
 
 answered her willfully and defiantly, although with 
 a touch of attractive mischievousness. 
 
 " Nobody sent me out," she said. " I have just 
 decided to be a forager ; that 's all. While I was 
 in the hive a little while ago a forager came in 
 with two great loads of pollen in her pollen bas- 
 kets. She was very tired and seemed sick. While 
 she was looking around for an empty cell in which 
 to put her pollen, she suddenly sank down — and 
 — and died." 
 
 Nuova shivered as she said this, and dropped 
 her antennae down over her eyes for a moment. 
 
 "Ah, yes," said Saggia sadly but proudly; 
 " worked herself to death. That is the noble death 
 we have. We die in the harness — working for 
 others, working for the hive. The bees know that 
 death well and honor it." 
 
 "They may know it well," broke in Nuova 
 sharply, " but they do not honor it well. Anyway, 
 not by their actions. Nobody paid any attention 
 to the poor forager when she was staggering along 
 with her load, and none when she sank down on 
 the floor and died. Except pretty soon a couple 
 of cleaners came along and dragged her body 
 
88 JsTuova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 away. I suppose they brought it out here and flung 
 it ofl" the platform somewhere. A noble death, well 
 honored, indeed ! Well, I don't want that kind. I 
 am going to die out in the garden, under a flower." 
 While Nuova was speaking, Beffa had hopped 
 and hummed his way over to them, and now he 
 broke in with a song, which he sang as he hopped 
 and danced about them. This is what he sang: 
 
 " Work, no play ; work all day ; 
 A useful life ; a usual life ; 
 The good bee's way, 
 All day, all day. 
 Then die and lie 
 Till Saggia spy 
 The carrion stuff — 
 A tug ; a shove. 
 And the friend you love 
 Is gone to grass : 
 Ha, ha, alas, is gone to grass. 
 A noble life ; a halted breath : 
 The epitaph : ' She worked to death.' 
 
 Both Saggia and Nuova listened to Beffa and 
 watched him till he had finished singing. They 
 both saw clearly his own unhappiness and his own 
 revolt against the rigor of the bee tradition that 
 
J^uova goes Outside 89 
 
 demands always the full sacrifice of the individual 
 for the community. Saggia realized that Beffa, too, 
 was a "new bee." 
 
 Nuova, in the meanwhile, was looking off again 
 into the beautiful garden ; at the green grass and 
 bushes ; the many-colored flowers ; the blue sky 
 and warm, bright sunshine over all. She was en- 
 chanted. She drew a long breath of reUef and hap- 
 piness. She turned to Saggia. 
 
 "Will they keep me in," she whispered, "if I 
 go back into the hive? If they will, I shan't go," 
 she added positively. 
 
 Saggia looked about again to see if other bees 
 were paying attention to them. None was. 
 
 " No," she said, speaking in a low voice, " they 
 won't keep you. They won't pay any attention to 
 you as long as you keep busy, coming and going. 
 You can be a honey-gatherer. The honey-flowers 
 are only a little way off, there in the garden. But 
 first you must get acquainted with the outside of 
 the hive and the entrance. Look around. See, we 
 are just by the side of this big bush, with that 
 long branch hanging over. You can go out a little 
 way from the platform, then turn around and see 
 
po JSCuova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 how the hive looks from there. Then go a Httle 
 farther and look back again. Then go a little way 
 to one side, and then to the other, and notice every- 
 thing that will help you to find your way back. 
 If you get lost, see if you can't see other honey- 
 gatherers or pollen-foragers flying with full loads ; 
 they are returning to the hive; follow them. As 
 to collecting the honey, you will learn that easily; 
 in fact, you will be surprised when you get to the 
 flowers, to find that you already know how. Be 
 careful and not get into the poppies that shut up 
 on you, and watch always for the great-crested 
 bee-bird that swoops down on you, and, peck " 
 — Saggia exaggeratedly imitated a bird's peck- 
 ing — " and that is the end. Now, be off for your 
 first flight. But not too far — not for the first 
 time." 
 
 Nuova's face shone with eagerness. " Oh, thank 
 you, Saggia, thank you. You are good to me. You 
 are different from the others. Thank you, dearest 
 Saggia." 
 
 Nuova started quickly forward toward the edge 
 of the platform. Just then Beffa, who had been 
 hopping gently about Nuova and Saggia while 
 
JYuova goes Outside 9 1 
 
 they were talking, now hopped and danced along 
 in front of Nuova, singing : 
 
 " The new bee and the old world; 
 Flowers are there and butterflies; 
 But ugly toads and big bee-birds, 
 If the old bee thinks she knows. 
 The new bee knows she does n't. 
 Ah, new bee knows the world-old truth, 
 That the old world 's ever new." 
 
 Nuova had slowed her steps so that she could 
 hear all of Befifa's Httle song, and as he finished 
 she came up to him and touched him caressingly 
 with one of her antennae. But Beffa shrank from 
 her caress. It meant so much to him, and yet 
 he knew it meant so little to her. He knew Nu- 
 ova liked him ; yes, but he knew that he more 
 than liked Nuova: he loved her. Poor Beffa I 
 Love ! A pitiful, deformed drone that could not 
 fly ; that could never be in the Great Courting 
 Chase ! And it was only then that the drones 
 loved; and then only a Princess that could be 
 loved. What he felt was impossible for a bee to 
 feel ; bee tradition told him that ; and yet, he 
 knew that he did feel this impossible thing. 
 
92 JVuova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 " Beffa, you are good to me too," said Nuova 
 to him; "you and Saggia are both good to me. 
 And you two are the wisest bees in the hive, for 
 you know that I am not the same as the other 
 bees. No bees are exactly the same, I believe. 
 We can't be all exactly alike, and we can't all 
 like the same things, or think the same way, can 
 we ? I wish I could be a Queen so that I could 
 have you always for my jester ; always by to 
 say funny things and wise things." 
 
 Beffa made a grimace — to hide a sob. And 
 he hopped more grotesquely than ever, while he 
 sang: 
 
 " Ah, well, who knows ? 
 New things unheard of may be true, 
 For every day the world is new. 
 Ah, well, who knows? 
 Ah, well, who knows? " 
 
 " Good-bye, Beffa," said Nuova. And she 
 stepped to the edge of the platform, and spread 
 her wings for her first flight, her first plunge into 
 the outside world of grass and flowers and but- 
 terflies and bee-birds. And just then something 
 happened that postponed this flight. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Nuova and Hero again, and a Battle 
 
 Just as Nuova was about to launch herself into 
 the air, a sudden commotion at the hive opening 
 made her look back. After this look she had no 
 further thought of the garden. What she saw was 
 the group of drones coming out of the hive, with 
 another group of worker bees attendant upon 
 them. These attendants were cleaning the drones' 
 bodies and wings and evidently preparing them 
 for some great event. It was plain to Nuova that 
 this was the preparation for the Great Courting 
 Chase. Her heart gave a leap, her eyes became 
 misty ; she stumbled and almost fell. She was so 
 dizzy that she thought sudden death had struck 
 her. It was only, however, the blow of her heart 
 and mind in realizing that Hero — her Hero — 
 must be in the group and preparing to leave her 
 forever. He had, in a sense, already left her for- 
 ever she knew, for he had made his decision — 
 or rather she felt that the cruel bee tradition 
 
94 J^uova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 had made the decision for him — to follow the 
 Princess. And if he followed her he could but 
 win. Her wonderful, handsome, powerful Hero 
 would be easily the successful one in the Great 
 Courting Chase. 
 
 She ran her eyes anxiously over the group of 
 drones now well out of the entrance and spread- 
 ing out on the platform. At first she did not see 
 Hero. But in a moment she did. He was a little 
 apart from the others, and showed none of the 
 excitement of the other drones. Indeed, he seemed 
 to be rather depressed, and was evidently keeping 
 quite by himself He had not even an attendant 
 with him. Nuova saw in this her chance. 
 
 She turned back from the edge of the plat- 
 form, merged into the excited crowd, none of 
 the bees paying any attention to her at all, and 
 began to work her way through the press toward 
 Hero. 
 
 Just then, however, Uno appeared by his side 
 and began to brush his wings. He turned on her 
 with an impatient gesture. Surprised and angry, 
 Uno made a grimace and left him. A moment 
 later. Due, noticing that he had no helper, hur- 
 
Muova and Hero again 95 
 
 ried over to him, but she, also, much to her 
 surprise and chagrin, was treated as Uno had 
 been. 
 
 Hero seemed to be in an irritable mood. As the 
 drones and their attendants came farther out, he 
 moved away toward the front of the platform. 
 This brought him rather near Nuova, who was 
 able to reach him before any other bee could offer 
 him her services. 
 
 Nuova, unperceived by Hero, slipped behind 
 him and began nervously and awkwardly, glanc- 
 ing at the attendants on the other drones for guid- 
 ance, to clean his wings. Soon an awkward tug 
 apprised Hero that some one was again trying 
 to attend him, and he turned with an angry move- 
 ment to drive her off, when he recognized Nuova, 
 and arrested his gesture. He stood still, looking 
 at her keenly, and, without a word, let her go on 
 caring for him. She grew even more nervous and 
 awkward. Then he smiled gently, and spoke to 
 her in a low voice. 
 
 " How do you come to be out here? " he asked. 
 "You were n't sent as an attendant to us. Only 
 the older and more experienced bees are given 
 
96 Muova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 that — honor." He smiled again. "You didnt 
 come out just now ? " 
 
 " No," said Nuova ahnost in a whisper — " no, 
 I was going out for honey." 
 
 "Oh, fine!" said Hero. "Out into the world 
 already 1 You must have done your work in the 
 hive very well." 
 
 "Yes," murmured Nuova demurely. 
 
 Just then two or three Black Bees slipped out 
 from behind a bush near the platform, but no one 
 noticed them. 
 
 "But why don't you go, then?" asked Hero. 
 " It is beautiful over there among the flowers." 
 He waved an antenna toward the garden. "And 
 fragrant, and exciting. Other kinds of creatures; 
 beetles and grasshoppers and big buzzing flies. 
 Some bad ones, too ; spiders and giant bee-birds 
 always watching, watching to catch you." Nuova 
 shuddered. "But you are not afraid, are you?" 
 Hero looked at her keenly. "Or are you? Do 
 you prefer to stay here in safety and just wait on 
 the drones? " 
 
 "Yes," said Nuova slowly, "I prefer to wait 
 on a drone." 
 
Nuova bedan to clean his winrf-s 
 
J^uova and Hero again 97 
 
 " I am surprised," said Hero sternly and even 
 half-contemptuously. 
 
 Just then Nuova made an awkward tug at his 
 wing. He winced. "Ouch!" he said; then half- 
 laughed. "Your champion will never win Prin- 
 cipessa if you pull his wings out." 
 
 As he said this, Nuova involuntarily, in re- 
 sponse to her feelings, gave an even harder tug 
 at his wings. 
 
 Hero exclaimed again, and half-pulled away 
 from her. He spoke almost angrily. 
 
 " Here, what are you doing?" he cried. Then, 
 as he looked into the eager, excited, pretty face 
 of his little attendant, he felt his heart give a cu- 
 rious throb. And when he spoke again it was 
 almost tenderly. 
 
 "Well, you are good to try and help me, any- 
 way. But" — and now he spoke rather moodily 
 — "I don't need much preparing. I can beat any 
 of them " — and he waved contemptuously toward 
 the other drones — "easily, just as I am." 
 
 Poor Nuova ! He could hardly have said a 
 more discouraging thing to her, or one to hurt 
 her more. She drew back a little and had hard 
 
98 JVuova, or The N'ew Bee 
 
 work not to cry. She half-sobbed as she said: 
 "That — is — fine. I am sure — you can." She 
 paused. Then she said slowly: "And if you do 
 beat them, are you sure to get — her? Are you 
 sure to be able to catch — her? " 
 
 The excitement on the platform was growing. 
 The drones seemed to be getting impatient, and 
 the attendants worked feverishly at the cleaning 
 and making ready for the wonderful event about 
 to happen. The infection of all this excitement 
 began to seize Hero. He had turned his face 
 away from Nuova to stare intently at the open- 
 ing of the hive. It was there, of course, that the 
 Princess would soon appear. 
 
 At Nuova's last question he started a little. 
 "Eh?" he said rather brusquely. "Oh, yes, of 
 course, I can catch her. She will fly faster than 
 we at first, but she can't keep it up as long as we 
 can. She will try to go higher and higher in the 
 air, but that is hard work. That is when we shall 
 catch up with her." He paused, then added, 
 musingly : " It is odd ; she is trying her best to 
 get away from us and yet she wants to get caught 
 all the time. She must get caught, you know, 
 
J^uova and Hero again 99 
 
 or we shouldn't have any Queen, and the hive 
 would go all to pieces. The old Queen never 
 comes back, of course. The Princess is our one 
 chance to have a Queen at all." 
 
 Nuova seemed to be thinking hard. Something 
 was puzzling her. "But," she asked insistently, 
 "what really does happen if a Princess does n't 
 get caught, or something happens to her. There 
 must be some way to save the community, is n't 
 there?" 
 
 Hero seemed to have lost interest again in 
 Nuova and her questionings. He was gazing 
 fixedly at the hive entrance. 
 
 " Oh," he said carelessly, " I don't know. I 've 
 heard sometimes that a worker bee can — " 
 
 He was suddenly interrupted. There was a new 
 and very violent commotion on that side of the plat- 
 form which the few Black Bees had approached, 
 unnoticed, a few minutes before. Now there was 
 a whole group of them plainly in sight and many 
 others were coming quickly out from behind the 
 bush. A great and angry buzzing was heard from 
 the guards on the platform and cries of " Lotta, 
 Lotta ! The Amazons ! Call Lotta ! Call the Ama- 
 
I oo JVuova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 zons ! Hurry ! The Black Bees ! The Black 
 Bees ! " 
 
 The guards, few as they were in comparison 
 with the oncoming horde of Black Bees, threw 
 themselves bravely at them, and a moment after 
 Lotta and her Amazons began issuing pell-mell 
 from the hive entrance. They were met almost 
 immediately by the foremost Black Bees, who had 
 easily killed or were driving back the few guards, 
 and were making rapid headway over the plat- 
 form toward the entrance. A few even had passed 
 in through the entrance, but they were driven out 
 again at once by the issuing Amazons. In fact, 
 most of the first Black Bees to gain a foothold on 
 the platform and to push forward to the entrance 
 or into it were killed. But that brought no terror 
 to the others. They pressed on over the dead 
 bodies of their comrades, lunging and striking 
 viciously with their long lances. 
 
 But Lotta and the Amazons were fighting 
 fiercely, too. They were making a heroic defense 
 of the hive and its stores. The battle raged with 
 great fury, but for a Httle while with no apparent 
 advantage to either side. The Black Bees seemed, 
 
Muova and Hero again i o i 
 
 on the whole, the more expert and the more fu- 
 rious fighters — they are, indeed, a race of bees 
 famous for their fighting — but Lotta's wonderful 
 personal courage and deeds of prowess were a 
 great inspiration to the defenders. She appeared 
 to be everywhere at once, and her shouts of defi- 
 ance to the enemy and of encouragement to her 
 followers made up in some measure for the feebler 
 strength and less experience of her band. 
 
 This was so obvious to the Black Bees that she 
 was soon singled out for special attack by groups 
 of her adversaries. Two or three Black Bees 
 would combine to assail her from different sides, 
 but her lightning movements and dashing bravery 
 had so far saved her even from being touched by 
 an enemy's lance. But just at the moment when 
 Nuova had recovered a little from her amazement 
 and terror at this sudden invasion, Lotta received 
 her first wound. The fierce Black Bees were clos- 
 ing around her too closely. Nuova felt a violent 
 rage rising within her as she realized that at any 
 cost the Black Bees were going to kill the leader 
 of the Amazons. Lotta was staggering, and a 
 half-dozen lances were lunging at her. She stum- 
 
I02 JVuova, or The JsTew Bee 
 
 bled, gave one final shout of defiance — and 
 fell. 
 
 It was a terrible blow to the Amber Amazons. 
 They were seized with dismay. They had no one 
 to lead them. They hesitated, gave way here and 
 there, and the Black Bees with triumphant shouts 
 pressed forward. Some of them had even reached 
 the entrance, when a new, shrill battle-cry and 
 call of encouragement to the Amber fighters rose 
 above all the noise of the battle. 
 
 The cry came from Nuova. She had watched the 
 whole terrible struggle in a sort of daze; half of ter- 
 ror, half of utter amazement. But when Lotta was 
 struck down, the rage rising within her seized her 
 completely, and when the Black Bees had pressed 
 on over the fallen leader's body with shouts of tri- 
 umph, she sprang forward, grasped Lotta's own 
 lance from her sinking hand, and threw herself 
 with such fury on the rear of the marauders that 
 they had to turn to defend themselves. Then it 
 was that she had uttered her first battle-cry. As 
 the Amber bees heard it and saw at the same 
 time that some of the black fighters had turned to 
 defend themselves against an attack in the rear, 
 
JSTuova and Hero again 103 
 
 they checked their retreat and began answering 
 back this new shrill call. In the next moment they 
 saw something that filled them all with rejoicing 
 and gave them at once a new courage. 
 
 Nuova, taking a lesson from the method of the 
 attackers, had looked about, even as she leaped 
 into the fight, for the leader of the Blacks, and 
 had fought her way fiercely directly toward her. 
 In a moment they were face to face, and in another 
 moment thrusting and parrying in deadly personal 
 combat. 
 
 But nothing could withstand the vigor and 
 audacity of this rage-maddened new warrior's 
 assault, and the black leader, first contemptuous, 
 then amazed, then terrified, found herself fighting 
 vainly for her life. She managed to strike Nuova 
 one or two glancing blows with her lance, but for 
 answer received a thrust fairly through the body, 
 and fell with a great cry of defeat and pain. 
 
 This it was that filled the despairing Amber 
 bees with a new courage and reanimated them to 
 fresh resistance. Turning on their attackers, they 
 renewed the battle with an irresistible surge to- 
 ward Nuova, and reaching her and following her 
 
1 04 JVuova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 lead in but few moments more they had rushed 
 the disheartened Black Bees off of the platform. 
 They even followed them into the grass, where 
 they killed many of them one by one. Then they 
 hurried back with shouts of victory, and ranged 
 themselves in lines for marching and dancing. 
 While the foragers busied themselves with carry- 
 ing the bodies of the fallen off of the platform, all 
 the Amazons marched and danced and sang loud 
 songs of triumph. 
 
 But Nuova was not among them. She was 
 among the fallen. Not far from the body of the 
 dead leader of the Black Bees whom she had so 
 brilliantly overcome, Nuova lay huddled. Saggia, 
 who had been hustled out of the press and into 
 the entrance of the hive while the battle was going 
 on, now hurried to her fallen friend. Beffa, also, 
 came hopping anxiously to her, and Hero, who 
 knew now that Nuova was no coward, and had, 
 indeed, been seized with a great admiration and 
 at the same time a great soUcitude for his extraor- 
 dinary little worker-bee friend, also hastened to 
 her side and bent over her. Other bees, too, came 
 crowding around, and Nuova's body would almost 
 
Nuova AA^as amonrf the fallen 
 
JVuova and Hero again 105 
 
 have been trampled under foot by the surging crowd 
 if Hero had not angrily cleared a little space about 
 her. Saggia, who had found already to her great 
 joy that Nuova showed no lance wound, but had 
 only been stunned by a glancing blow, was lifting 
 her gently to her feet. And just as Hero came to 
 her side, Nuova, dazed and faint, first opened her 
 eyes. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Hero and Nuova once more^ and the 
 Great Courting Chase 
 
 " My brave little Nuova," said Saggia, joyfully 
 and tenderly. And Beffa hopped happily about, 
 singing softly to her : 
 
 "For a new bee 
 A new way ; 
 From nurse to warrior 
 All in a day. 
 What 's for to-morrow ? 
 Who can say ? 
 For the newest bee, 
 The newest way." 
 
 The other bees about her were all talking con- 
 fusedly together. "She saved our stores! Who 
 is she?" they cried. "She is Nuova, the nurse I 
 Nuova, the wax-maker! She is Nuova, the honey- 
 gatherer ! She was not even an Amazon ! Is she 
 hurt? She is killed! She is wounded! What a 
 brave bee ! " 
 
Hero and JSTuova once more 107 
 
 Hero had said nothing yet, but now, as he 
 leaned over her with his face close to hers and her 
 eyes opened slowly, he murmured tenderly, " Lit- 
 tle Nuoval " 
 
 Nuova looked languidly up at him and around 
 at Saggia and Beffa; then closed her eyes again 
 with a weak but happy smile, and spoke in a low, 
 trembling voice: "She struck me, but I hit her 
 back ; I hit her harder." 
 
 "You killed her, Nuova," broke in Hero, proudly. 
 "You were wonderful." 
 
 Nuova shuddered. " Killed her! " she said sadly. 
 "Dreadful! I am sorry." 
 
 " Sorry ? " cried Saggia. " You silly ! You saved 
 us ! You won the victory by killing her ! " 
 
 "Who was she?" asked Nuova, still sadly. 
 
 " Why, the Chief of the Black Bees," said Hero, 
 proudly and tenderly. " Their greatest fighter ! 
 And you, little Nuova, alone, killed her." 
 
 Nuova looked up at him thoughtfully. "Are you 
 glad?" she asked. 
 
 Hero turned with stupefaction to Saggia. She 
 could only lift her hands in amazement. Nuova's 
 mental processes were too much for them, although 
 
io8 JVuova, or The jSf^ew Bee 
 
 Beffa, hopping near, nodded his head wisely to 
 himself. 
 
 "Glad? I glad? Of course, you absurd war- 
 rior! " said Hero. "We are all glad, aren't we? " 
 he asked of the others about 
 
 " Glad ? Of course, we are glad ! You saved us ! " 
 said they all. 
 
 "Well," said Nuova, smiling gently, and look- 
 ing up at Hero, " if you are glad, I am glad." And 
 then she let her head sink down again and closed 
 her eyes. 
 
 While Saggia and Beffa and Hero had been 
 caring for Nuova and talking to her, most of 
 the other bees had gradually resumed their nor- 
 mal occupations, the guards moving watchfully 
 about over the platform, the foragers coming and 
 going, and two or three cleaners scrubbing the 
 floor here and there to remove all stains of the 
 battle. 
 
 But Uno, Due, and Tre had not yet gone back 
 into the hive to resume their nursing work, but 
 with a few other bees had formed a group stand- 
 ing a little way off from the group about Nuova. 
 They were whispering and looking and pointing 
 
Hero and JVtiova once more 109 
 
 toward Nuova. Uno finally left her group and 
 came over and joined the bees about Nuova. She 
 whispered to a few of them, and finally spoke out 
 loud enough to be generally heard. 
 
 " Nuova was not an Amazon," she said. " Why 
 should she fight? Is this the way of bees?" 
 
 Due and Tre shook their heads vigorously and 
 murmured, "No, no." 
 
 And several other bees of their group shook 
 their heads dubiously. 
 
 "No," spoke up Due, " this is not the bee cus- 
 tom. A good bee does the thing she is set to 
 do. For a nurse to use a lance ! No, that is un- 
 heard of." 
 
 " No, no, it is n't done, you know," said a drone 
 near by, wagging his head wisely. 
 
 " If it had n't been done, you loafer," cried 
 Saggia angrily, " you would have starved to 
 death before we could have refilled our pantries 
 again after the Black Bees had taken all our 
 food ! " 
 
 "But it is not the bee way," interjected Tre; 
 then adding boldly and tauntingly to Saggia, " Are 
 you a new bee, too ? " 
 
no J^uova, or The J^ew Bee 
 
 "No," replied Saggia vigorously, " I am an old 
 bee — old enough to have learned a little more 
 than I knew when I was a nurse bee — a loafing 
 nurse bee," she added, looking significantly and 
 hard at Uno, Due, and Tre in turn. 
 
 They all started guiltily and began to move 
 slowly toward the entrance, but all the time look- 
 ing back malevolently at Saggia and Nuova. 
 
 "It's not the right bee way," they muttered. 
 "It is n't the usual way." 
 
 Several other bees joined them in their mutter- 
 ing and head-shaking. 
 
 Just then, however, a new excitement became 
 manifest at the hive entrance. Those drones who 
 had gone back into the hive were issuing now 
 post-haste, while those still outside joined those 
 coming out. To them hastened their attendants, 
 and in a moment all was busy preparation and 
 expectation again. 
 
 Beffa, who had moved over to the entrance as 
 the drones began to come out, now came hopping 
 and humming across the platform toward Sag- 
 gia, Nuova, and Hero. As he came near he was 
 singing: 
 
Hero and JYuova once more 1 1 1 
 
 " She comes; she comes ; 
 Principessa now would wed ; 
 She seeks the sky for marriage-bed. 
 Let drones aside their languor fling; 
 Bethink the prize; to be a King." 
 
 Hero started up, infected by the excitement and 
 driven by the still potent bee tradition. " She is 
 coming," he murmured, "the Princess." 
 
 All the bees were growing more and more ex- 
 cited. The drones began to form in a line. Their 
 attendants worked feverishly at cleaning and pre- 
 paring them. The other bees cleared a space near 
 the entrance, in front of the drones, whose eager- 
 ness was betrayed by their bending forward like 
 runners on the starting-line. Hero started for- 
 ward to take his place at the nearest end of the 
 line. Nuova tried to stand, Saggia helping her. 
 She tottered as if to fall, but regained her balance. 
 Her face was drawn and tears welled from her 
 eyes. She pushed Saggia to one side and totter- 
 ingly followed Hero. As he moved to his place, 
 as if in a sort of daze and hypnotized and driven 
 by another will than his, Nuova staggered into 
 place behind him, as attendant, and made feeble 
 
1 1 z Muova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 attempts to brush his wings. He did not seem to 
 see her nor even to reahze her presence, but kept 
 his eyes fixed on the entrance. 
 
 The commotion among the bees increased. All 
 watched incessantly the opening of the hive. Sud- 
 denly the Princess was seen to be coming slowly 
 and proudly out, still cold and set of face, but beau- 
 tiful in figure and carriage, truly queenly in all her 
 seeming. 
 
 Three or four attendants were busy behind her, 
 brushing her long, slender wings, and removing 
 every speck or stain from her body. The drones 
 all leaned farther forward, their eagerness infect- 
 ing her. For she became more animated and be- 
 gan spreading out and fluttering her wings. The 
 drones did the same. 
 
 Beffa was hopping about with ridiculous activ- 
 ity and awkwardness, humrning inaudible words. 
 Suddenly, with a jerk. Hero turned his eyes from 
 the Princess and let them wander about as if 
 seeking something. They rested on Beffa, who 
 in response made motions in his dancing that 
 unmistakably directed Hero to look behind him. 
 He did so and saw Nuova. He stared fixedly at 
 
Hero and JSTuova once more 113 
 
 her a moment. Then he leaned toward her and 
 said in a curious, tense, but almost appealing tone, 
 as if he were asking her for advice or help : 
 
 "The Great Courting Chase is on ! A Queen 
 is to be won ! The prize is to be a King ! " 
 
 Nuova called on all her strength, physical and 
 spiritual. 
 
 "Yes, yes," she gasped. "Be ready! Lean 
 forward ! They are starting ! You will win ! " 
 Her voice broke a little. "You can't lose, Hero 
 — wonderful Hero. You will be King — our 
 King — my King. Good-bye ! " She stifled a sob. 
 "Good luck! Good-bye!" 
 
 She could say no more. She turned her face 
 away from his, sobbing unrestrainedly. Saggia, 
 who had come to her side, caught her and supported 
 her just as the Princess, with wings outspread and 
 eyes fixed outward and upward, ran quickly to the 
 outer edge of the platform, followed a little way 
 behind by the drones in a group. As the Princess 
 reached the platform's edge, she launched herself 
 beautifully into the air and flew swiftly, first straight 
 out and up and then curving gently away to the 
 left. One after another the drones flew after her. 
 
114 J^uova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 Nuova gazed fixedly after the following drones. 
 Hero's delay with Nuova made him the last to 
 spring into the air. But he flew so strongly that 
 it seemed certain that he would quickly make up 
 for this handicap in the great race. Indeed, some 
 of the onlooking bees began to call out, " See 
 how Hero is gaining ! He will surely win ! Hero 
 will be King ! " 
 
 Nuova had strained her gaze after Hero until 
 he with all the others had passed from sight far 
 out and up in the bright sky. As she gazed she 
 had lifted on tiptoe and had even spread out her 
 wings as if she would fly after him, but now as 
 he disappeared she collapsed and fell back heavily 
 with closed eyes and a pitiful sob into Saggia's 
 supporting embrace. 
 
 Just then Beffa came hopping and humming 
 over to them and sang, as if mockingly, but really 
 with sympathetic and comforting meaning: 
 
 " Ha, ha, the sad attendant! 
 Her champion is too slow. 
 He '11 never win the Princess, 
 Her kiss he '11 never know." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Nuova in the Beautiful Garden 
 
 When Nuova had recovered enough to face 
 squarely the situation in her life and in the life 
 of the hive, she found herself very weak and 
 very sad. Above all, she found the thought of 
 going again into the dark hive to work extremely 
 repugnant to her. And almost the first thing she 
 said to Saggia, who had remained faithfully by 
 her, supporting and caring for her, was that she 
 would not go back into the hive to nurse or make 
 wax or do anything else that meant staying in- 
 side. 
 
 Saggia comforted her by saying that she would 
 not have to work inside. The kindly old bee 
 whispered to her that there was always so much 
 confusion and such change in the hive arrange- 
 ments whenever a new Princess was born, and 
 either she or the old Queen went out with many 
 of the workers, that she could easily change her 
 kind of work now without any notice being taken 
 of it. And to confirm this Saggia pointed to sev- 
 
1 1 6 JSTuova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 eral of the nurses, among them Uno, Due, and 
 Tre, making one after another the Httle trial flights 
 that Saggia had told Nuova to make preparatory 
 to going into the garden out of sight of the hive. 
 These nurses were plainly intending to become 
 foragers. Even as Saggia and Nuova watched 
 them, one after another flew out higher and far- 
 ther and disappeared into the garden. 
 
 It was a beautiful garden on the edge of which 
 the hive was set. The owner of the garden was 
 a great lover and student of flowers. He liked 
 bees and beetles and birds, too ; all kinds of live 
 things, plant or animal. And no one was ever 
 allowed to kill any creature, little or big, in his 
 garden, so it was full to overflowing with life and 
 animation. Birds made their nests in it ; squirrels 
 barked in the trees ; even moles and gophers 
 made their underground runways unmolested. 
 There were open, sunny grass-plots for playing, 
 and close httle copses and coverts for hiding, and 
 great trees for climbing to see out into the still 
 wider world beyond the garden walls. But the 
 garden itself was world enough for most of the 
 creatures that lived in it. There were flowers 
 
In the GaTpdenu 
 
Jsfuova in the Beautiful Garden 117 
 
 enough for the bees ; seeds and worms enough 
 for the birds ; nuts enough for the squirrels. And 
 if some of the happy family in the garden had to 
 live by eating some of the others, still that was 
 the way of life, and the only thing was to hope 
 and try to make sure that the end would not come 
 too soon. 
 
 Nuova already loved the garden, although so 
 far she had not been in it ; at least not been any 
 more in it than standing on the entrance platform 
 of the hive and looking into it from this vantage- 
 ground. But now she was really to go out into 
 it, and sad and tired though she was, she felt a 
 little thrill of happiness as she thought of what she 
 might see over there beyond the near-by bushes, 
 out there among the brilliant flowers and the lush 
 grasses. She turned to Saggia gratefully. 
 
 "Good-bye, dear Saggia," she said gently. "I 
 am going to go into the garden now. I will make the 
 little flights first as you told me, so as to be able 
 to find my way back to the hive — but, I don't 
 know, Saggia, I don't feel like ever coming back 
 to the hive." Her eyes filled with tears. "He — 
 he will never come back. He will win, and he 
 
1 1 8 JSTuova, or The JSfew Bee 
 
 will — will die." She shuddered and nearly col- 
 lapsed again. 
 
 Saggia could say nothing. She believed, too, 
 that Hero would win in the Great Courting Chase. 
 And if he won, he would die. It was really, she 
 thought with some anger, a very stupid sort of 
 arrangement; very unfair to the King; to be 
 crowned because he was the finest, strongest, and 
 swiftest drone in the hive, or in any of the other 
 near-by hives whose drones also joined in any 
 Courting Chase they noticed going on, only to die 
 at once. It was simply not only stupid ; it was 
 brutal. 
 
 She did not like to think of Nuova's going off 
 alone into the garden so soon. And she could not 
 put out of her mind the uneasy feeling that Nuova 
 would never come back to the hive at all ; not 
 even as a forager who might go out and in as she 
 pleased. Nuova had too plainly shown that her 
 interest in living was gone, and her surrender to 
 her impulses of the moment was likely at any time 
 to be complete even though it might lead to death 
 itself. Saggia decided that she and Beffa were 
 needed in the garden. As Nuova left her to go to 
 
JSfuova in the Beautiful Garden 119 
 
 the edge of the platform for her first flights, Sag- 
 gia scurried off in search of Beffa. 
 
 A number of bees were busy at a Httle group of 
 flowers in the garden when one of them, Uno, who 
 had just turned around facing the general direction 
 of the hive, suddenly uttered an exclamation. 
 
 "Well, of all things!" she said. " Beffa in the 
 garden !" The other bees turned and stared. 
 
 " And Saggia ! " exclaimed one of them. " Beffa 
 and Saggia ! Beffa in the garden ! What can he 
 do here?" 
 
 Beffa, hearing them, released himself from Sag- 
 gia' s support, and began to make weak little hop- 
 pings and to sing. Poor Befia ; he was sadly tired, 
 for because of his deformed wings he had had to 
 walk all the way from the hive. And Saggia was 
 tired, too, because she had walked with him, and 
 not only that, but had helped him over some of 
 the rougher places. 
 
 Beffa sang: 
 
 " Beffa in the garden ; 
 The prisoner in the sun ; 
 No Queen in the palace ; 
 No jesting to be done." 
 
I20 J^uova, or The Mew Bee 
 
 He stopped to rest, and Saggia went slowly to 
 a flower, where she busied herself putting a little 
 pollen into her pollen baskets. 
 
 Due turned to Beffa. " Hi, Beffa, you can sing 
 and dance for us while we gather pollen and honey. 
 And you can watch for Bee-Bird to see that he 
 does n't surprise us. Oh, you can be useful. Hop, 
 hop, hop-la! " And she made a little hop or two, 
 in mimicry of Beffa. 
 
 Tre had been looking sharply at Saggia. "And 
 Saggia does n't seem to be doing much," she said, 
 with asperity. "Foraging again, is she? That is 
 rather a dangerous business for such an old bee, 
 is n't it?" she said malevolently. " The two-legged 
 man giant that owns this garden likes the two- 
 legged bird giants. He is a brute! He protects the 
 birds ! And they eat the insects ! He might protect 
 us, rather. Brute ! " 
 
 "Brute!" cried the other bees. "Protect the 
 horrid birds, indeed ! Sting him if you see him." 
 
 Just then a big blue-bottle fly that had been 
 buzzing about the flowers ventured too near a dark 
 corner lower down in the bush, and was lunged 
 at by a big black spider, which barely missed it. 
 
JYuova in the Beautiful Garden 121 
 
 The blue-bottle dashed excitedly away with a tre- 
 mendous buzzing, and all the bees jumped about 
 nervously a httle. 
 
 Beffa began to sing without rising from the 
 ground, just moving his feet as if dancing: 
 " Bee-birds in the tree-tops. 
 Spiders in the grass ; 
 Death rides down the sunbeam. 
 Death leaps as you pass." 
 
 " Ugh ! " said Uno. " Can't you sing something 
 more cheerful? Be funny, can't you ? " 
 
 Beffa got up and hopped about a little. Then 
 he sang : 
 
 " Out among the flower-cups, 
 Dancing in the sun ; 
 Now a drink of nectar, 
 Then another one. 
 Brushing up the pollen, 
 Hurry 'gainst the gleam, 
 Pail and basket over-full, 
 Off to hive and home ! " 
 
 All the bees skipped and danced and sang after 
 him: 
 
 " Pail and baskets over-full. 
 Off to hive and home ! " 
 
122 JsTuova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 After singing this refrain several times and 
 dancing happily about a few moments, the bees 
 set at their work again industriously. It was so 
 beautiful and so bright and so warm in the garden 
 that one could not help being happy in it. 
 
 And yet just then Nuova stepped out from be- 
 hind a flowering bush looking very weary and very 
 sad. Saggia, who had been glancing around for 
 her all the time, slipped quickly and quietly over 
 to her without attracting the attention of any of 
 the bees, and before any other one had seen her. 
 
 Saggia led Nuova around to the side of the bush 
 where they would be out of sight of the other bees, 
 and then spoke to her in a low tone. 
 
 "Are you all right, Nuova?" she asked anx- 
 iously. 
 
 Nuova smiled wearily and sadly. "Of course, 
 I am all right," she said gently; "who would not 
 be out here in this wonderful world, this golden 
 sunshine, this fragrant air ? It 's a place to be all 
 right in all the time. I am going to stay here." 
 
 "Stay here? What do you mean?" asked 
 Saggia. 
 
 " Simply that, dear Saggia," she replied gently. 
 
Nuova in the Beautiful Garden 123 
 
 smiling; "stay right here in the warm sun, near 
 the beautiful flowers. Do you think I am going 
 back into the dark hive to die like that poor for- 
 ager and be dragged off and tossed out like a 
 piece of dirty wax?" She shuddered. "No, no; 
 I am going to die out here, and lie in the soft 
 grass under that heliotrope there." 
 
 Saggia spoke anxiously but sternly. "Die? 
 Die ? Why do you talk of dying ? Have you a 
 right to die yet ? Have you done all you should 
 do for the hive? Are you going to shirk your 
 duty? Anyway" — and her voice grew more 
 kindly — "do you really want to die? Don't you 
 want to do first all the things a bee can do, to 
 nurse — " 
 
 " I have nursed," Nuova interrupted. 
 
 "And make wax — " Saggia went on. 
 
 " I have made wax," Nuova broke in. 
 
 Saggia persisted, "And build cells — " 
 
 " I have built cells," interrupted Nuova again. 
 
 "And gather honey — " Saggia continued. 
 
 Nuova touched a near-by flower. " I am gath- 
 ering honey," she said. 
 
 Saggia hesitated a moment, then began again. 
 
124 J^uova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 "And — and — " she stammered; then exclaimed 
 suddenly and triumphantly — " and clean floors ! " 
 
 Nuova smiled at Saggia's anticlimax. " No, I 
 have n't scrubbed the floor yet. I suppose I ought 
 to enjoy that a little before I die. But you see I 
 am not really old enough to have had time for 
 everything." 
 
 "That's it," broke in Saggia warmly. "You 
 are not old enough yet. It is nonsense to talk of 
 dying so young. You must live a long time yet. 
 Look at me ! Think how old I am! " 
 
 Nuova smiled again, but grew earnest as she 
 spoke. "It is not how long you live, Saggia; it is 
 how much you live. I have not done everything, 
 but I have done most things. You, you dear 
 wise, old, sensible bee, you have done the things 
 calmly one after another as it came time for you 
 to do them. But I have tried everything that was 
 interesting and for only as long as it was. You 
 have Hved a long and useful life with much in it. 
 I have lived a short and useless one; but also 
 with much in it. You have Hved mostly for others, 
 and have been mostly happy. I have lived mostly 
 for myself, and been mostly unhappy. But that is 
 
JVuova in the Beautiful Garden 125 
 
 the way I am, Saggia. That is my way of living 
 and really I suppose, my way of being happy ; 
 happily unhappy. And, Saggia" — and Nuova 
 bent close over to her, as if to tell her a secret — 
 "you know, don't you, that if I have missed clean- 
 ing floors, I have done something else in place of 
 it; something you haven't done. I have loved! 
 And that is the happiest unhappiness I have had." 
 
 Saggia was truly shocked. " Nuova," she ex- 
 claimed, "haven't I told you before not to say 
 such things ! You have not loved," she added, 
 firmly, "because you cannot love. Poor little Nu- 
 ova, you have much to learn yet about bee life." 
 
 " There is much about it I don't want to learn," 
 muttered Nuova. 
 
 "There is much you must learn," replied Sag- 
 gia sternly, but kindly. "And some of it you must 
 learn now. When I say you cannot love, I mean 
 exactly that ; not that you ought not or must not, 
 because other bees do not, but simply that you 
 cannot. Bee loving is not just liking and sighing 
 and laughing and dancing and crying, and being 
 always happy and unhappy at once, but it is be- 
 coming the mother of babies, many babies, and 
 
126 JYiiova, or The Jsfew Bee 
 
 that only Princesses can become. And when they 
 are the mothers of babies, they are Queens. In bee 
 land to be a mother is to be a Queen, and to be a 
 Queen is only to be a mother." 
 
 Nuova was silent. She felt compelled to be- 
 lieve Saggia, who surely knew about the life of 
 bees if any one did, and who had always spoken 
 truthfully to her. And yet she had a feeling 
 within her that seemed some way to contradict 
 Saggia's knowledge. 
 
 " Well, then, Saggia," she said slowly, " I have 
 n't loved, but I have wished to love." And she 
 added in a whisper, " I want to love I " 
 
 "You cannot love," repeated Saggia firmly. 
 "Only Princesses can love. You should not think 
 of it any more." 
 
 Nuova looked up into the sky. And when she 
 spoke it was as if she were speaking in a dream. 
 " I want to love and I cannot love ! Only a Prin- 
 cess can love. And I am not a Princess. What 
 can I do ? Clean floors ? " She turned to Saggia 
 and smiled sadly. " No, I cannot clean floors, 
 either," she said softly. " I am an unfortunate 
 sort of bee, Saggia, a worthless sort. A new bee, 
 
JSTuova in the Beautiful Garden 127 
 
 but not new enough to love, and too new to clean 
 floors. Just a bee to lie under the heliotrope 
 
 bush." 
 
 Just then Beffa, who had come hopping and 
 
 gently humming up to them unperceived by 
 
 either, and who had overheard Nuova's last 
 
 words, began to sing: 
 
 " A heliotrope or a rose-bush, 
 A pale-blue flower or pink, 
 But a dead bee sees no colors 
 Nor smells sweet smells, I think. 
 An old world for old bees, 
 A new world for the new, 
 And, ah, who knows the real truth ? 
 The untrue may be true." 
 
 Nuova was delighted, in her sadness, to see 
 Beffa again. " Beffa, you dear, funny Beffa 1 " she 
 cried. " But how did you get out here in the 
 
 garden?" 
 
 " He could n't come, 
 And so he came. 
 Can or cannot, 
 All 's a name," 
 
 sang Beffa in reply, hopping about more vigor- 
 ously than ever. 
 
128 JSTuova, or The JSfew Bee 
 
 As Beffa finished, Saggia saw some of the 
 other bees looking scowlingly toward them. She 
 touched Nuova with an antenna. 
 
 " Nuova," she said in a low voice, "we must 
 get to work. The other bees are noticing us. 
 We are idling. We must go to work. Beffa can 
 sit here in the sunshine and watch us." She 
 moved off toward a flower. 
 
 Nuova looked after her a moment, and then 
 she turned to Beffa. 
 
 " Good old Saggia," she said. " She is an ex- 
 ample of industry, isn't she? But I don't like 
 her to work just because others are noticing us. 
 That makes me want not to work." She stood 
 loitering by him. 
 
 Beffa deliberately stretched himself, with a 
 yawn, and settling down comfortably near a dan- 
 delion, he hummed, as if half-asleep already : 
 
 " Some work because others talk; 
 Some talk because others work; 
 The wisest bee keeps wisest way, 
 He — goes — to — sleep ! " 
 
 And as he finished he closed his eyes. 
 
 Nuova saw through Beffa' s transparent means 
 
Beffa ^eUled down. 
 
 com f or t Ekbly 
 
JSTuova in the Beautiful Garden 129 
 
 of sending her off to work, and was as much 
 amused as vexed. "Oh," she said, " I much pre- 
 fer working to talking with bees whose wisdom 
 might put me to sleep, too. Good-bye," She 
 made a mocking curtsy and went off slowly to a 
 small group of flowers which was hidden by a 
 large bush from the rest of the bees. 
 
 As soon as she had started, Beffa opened one 
 eye to spy on her, and as she disappeared behind 
 the bush he slowly straightened up, very much 
 awake and evidently strongly possessed by some 
 idea. He let his eyes roam over all of the garden 
 he could see, and he even scanned the air in all 
 directions. Apparently not finding what he sought, 
 he remained quiet, but alert, on the flat dandelion 
 leaf The bees at the flowers worked industri- 
 ously. The garden was fragrant and quiet in the 
 sun. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Hero finds Nuova in the Garden 
 
 Saggia had joined a group of foragers at work, 
 among whom were Uno and Tre. These two 
 bees at first moved away a Httle as Saggia came 
 over, but in their foraging work they gradually 
 came close to her again. Pretty soon Uno, after 
 glancing toward Beffa sitting quietly by the dan- 
 delion, spoke to Saggia. 
 
 " The garden is not a place for jesting," she 
 said sharply; "nor for Hstening to jesting. Beffa 
 is not a good example for bees who work." As 
 she said this she looked significantly at Saggia, 
 and several of the other bees, overhearing her, 
 smiled maliciously. 
 
 Saggia said nothing at first, but busied herself 
 at her flowers. As she changed, however, from 
 one flower to another one nearby, she said quietly: 
 " Beffa works harder than most of us." 
 
 "Do you call jesting work?" asked Tre indig- 
 nantly. 
 
Herojinds JSTuova in the Garden 131 
 
 " I call Beffa's work hard work — for Beffa; and 
 useful work," Saggia replied. 
 
 "What other hive has a jester, a bee that does 
 no work, that just hops and sings?" demanded 
 Uno angrily. 
 
 "We are more fortunate than other hives," said 
 Saggia evenly. " We have a bee who has time to 
 think, and a clever tongue to say what he thinks." 
 
 No one spoke for a moment, then Tre said me- 
 chanically, as if repeating by rote : " Bees ought 
 not to think ; and if they do they ought to keep 
 their thoughts to themselves." Then she added 
 maliciously: "I think I learned that from you, 
 Saggia." 
 
 The other bees turned and smiled. 
 
 "One lives and learns," said Saggia, a little 
 confused. 
 
 "Oh, worse yet!" exclaimed Uno. "'Bees do 
 not learn : they know.' That also is from Saggia," 
 she said, turning to the other bees. 
 
 They all smiled again enjoying Saggia's dis- 
 comfiture. 
 
 "Well," said Saggia desperately, "bees do 
 know most things, but — not — everything." 
 
132 J^Tuova, or The J^ew Bee 
 
 Just then Beffa came hopping toward them 
 hurriedly. He was singing loudly, too, and was 
 evidently much excited about something. As he 
 reached the group of foraging bees he did not stop, 
 but kept hopping right on by them singing loudly 
 as he passed: 
 
 " Hoptoad squats beneath the flower; 
 Waits that pleasant fateful hour 
 When honey-bee on food intent 
 Comes within his leafy tent; 
 Open! Shut! Poor bee, good-bye; 
 An ugly, horrid way to die!" 
 
 As the bees heard this, they all became much 
 frightened and excited, skipping about and peer- 
 ing in all directions. 
 
 " The Toad I " they cried. "Where? There! I 
 don't see him! Where, Beffa? Beffa, where?" 
 
 Beffa's movements plainly indicated the direc- 
 tion of danger to be toward where he had come 
 from, and the way of safety correspondingly in 
 the direction of his hopping. All the bees, there- 
 fore, with much buzzing and jumping about, 
 moved along with the hopping and singing Beffa. 
 Only Saggia seemed a little slow to take alarm 
 
Herojinds JVuova in the Garden 133 
 
 or to follow him closely. She watched him curi- 
 ously, and kept turning to look in the direction 
 from which he had come. She remembered that 
 Nuova was back there somewhere, and she could 
 not beUeve that Beffa would leave her in danger 
 in order to warn ever so many other bees. Saggia 
 knew well poor Beffa's hopeless love for Nuova. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Beffa had seen not a toad, 
 but something else, which, under the circum- 
 stances of bee life and tradition, was much more 
 extraordinary, and he had come hopping over to 
 lead off the other bees that they might not also 
 see it. 
 
 What he had seen was something that his keen 
 wits had told him all along he might see : in fact, 
 he had been looking for it all the time since he 
 had been in the garden ; it was something that 
 made him happy and unhappy at the same time. 
 It was something that would make Nuova the 
 happiest bee in the world, for a little while at 
 least, though it might mean something very 
 dreadful to her in the end. And what could make 
 Nuova happy made him happy — even though 
 her happiness should come from seeing some- 
 
134 JVuova, or The JSfew Bee 
 
 body else who would almost make her forget that 
 Beffa ever lived. What Beffa had seen was Hero 
 flying slowly down into the garden near where 
 Nuova was. It was certain that they would see 
 each other in a moment. 
 
 In fact, Nuova, turning away from the flower 
 which she had been slowly and listlessly rifling 
 of nectar, saw Hero just a moment after he 
 alighted. Her heart gave a great jump, and her 
 first impulse was to slip away before he could 
 see her; but when she saw how dejected and sad 
 he seemed, she felt a great pity for him and 
 wanted to comfort him. Just then he lifted his 
 eyes and saw her. He started, then controlled 
 himself and came to her. " Nuova," he said 
 quietly but earnestly ; " Nuova, I am glad you 
 are here." 
 
 Nuova could hardly speak. She was so tense 
 with excitement, with wonder, with happiness 
 that they were together again. But what had 
 happened? How could this be? 
 
 "You did not win?" she stammered. "You 
 are not dead?" She stared at him with painful 
 intentness. 
 
Herojinds Muova in the Garden 135 
 
 ' "I did not go on," said Hero slowly and 
 somberly. 
 
 Nuova did not understand. "An accident?" 
 she cried. " You could not fly? Your wings were 
 not — " she stopped, alarmed and almost in tears 
 at her thought. " Surely I did not hurt them 
 when I — I — pulled them ? " 
 
 Hero did not understand clearly what she 
 meant. In fact, he was too intent on the over- 
 whelming fact of what he had just done, of the 
 absolute break he had just made with bee tradi- 
 tion, to think, for the moment, of anything else. 
 
 "No, no," he said; "I just decided not to go 
 on. I — wanted to come to you." 
 
 Nuova could not realize at once all he meant 
 by these words. The thing clearest in her mind 
 just now was what Saggia and all the others had 
 told her so often. She began to speak slowly and 
 almost mechanically as her memory guided her. 
 
 "But you can't do that," she said. "It — it — 
 is n't done, you know. You must chase the Prin- 
 cess ; you must win her; and you — you" — 
 she sobbed — "you must die." 
 
 She stepped toward him, excitedly, with her 
 
136 JSTuova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 hands outstretched to urge him on. " Go on ! " 
 she exclaimed. "Go on! Start again! You are 
 so much swifter and stronger than the others ! 
 You can beat them yet! Hurry ! Fly! " 
 
 In her excitement and half-crazed exaltation 
 she pressed against him to push him into start- 
 ing. He held her closely to him for a moment, 
 caressing her gently. But soon she drew vio- 
 lently away, and spoke again with choking voice. 
 " Fly !" she said. "Goon! Goon!" 
 
 Hero shook his head doggedly. " No, I will not 
 go. I cannot go. I never wanted to go. I wanted to 
 come to you. I did n't know you were in the gar- 
 den. But here you are." In his joy at being with 
 her, he began to dismiss the dark thoughts of his 
 break with bee custom. He looked intently and 
 eagerly at her. 
 
 " Yes, here you are, I have come to you. I 
 have come to tell you that I " — he stumbled a 
 little in his speech, and smiled slightly — "I — 
 am a new bee, too! " 
 
 Nuova laughed happily. Then she grew serious 
 and puzzled. "And Saggia and Beffa," she said. 
 " Are we all new bees in this hive ? " 
 
Herojinds Muova in the Garden 137 
 
 Hero smiled. *' Uno, Due, and Tre — " he 
 said. 
 
 " Ugh ! horrid bees," said Nuova with a grim- 
 ace. " They would like to kill me." 
 
 " Beasts !" broke in Hero, " I'll kill them!" But 
 then he remembered the fact that he had no lance 
 nor by bee tradition could have any. "Absurd," 
 he said in disgust. "What a world, where only 
 the women may carry lances and fight and work, 
 and the men are only loafers and lovers, and can 
 only love by tradition, at that. Bah ! I 'd rather be 
 even a human being. They are silly enough, those 
 awkward giants, and can't fly and eat other ani- 
 mals as spiders and snakes do, but their men can 
 work and fight ; and they can love whom they like. 
 At least they can if they don't try to be too much 
 like us, as some of them seem to want to be. It 's 
 a terrible thing to be a man bee. We have no 
 rights at all!" 
 
 Nuova looked up at him wonderingly. "Why, 
 the other drones seem to like to loaf," she said. 
 "Anyway, they don't object." 
 
 " Don't object ! " exclaimed Hero contemptu- 
 ously. " They don't think ; they don't feel ! Each 
 
138 JVuova, or The JVew Bee 
 
 just does what the others do and all just do what 
 drones have always done." 
 
 "But how else are we to know what to do," 
 persisted Nuova, who had learned her lesson well 
 from Saggia, "except by seeing what others do, 
 and being told what the bees before us did?" 
 
 Hero was amazed and disconcerted to hear 
 Nuova talk in this way. 
 
 " Why, you talk like Saggia ! " he said. " What 
 do you mean ? Have n't you always objected to 
 doing what the others do? Haven't you always 
 tried to do what you most wanted to ? And have 
 n't you wanted to talk with me ? I thought you 
 — liked me." 
 
 Nuova was disconcertingly calm. "Oh, yes, I 
 have objected to some things, and I do like to talk 
 with you. And I like you. But all that must not 
 interfere with the work and life of the community. 
 And I am afraid it is interfering. I ought to be 
 getting more honey, and you ought to be flying 
 after the Princess." She paused; then she added, 
 determinedly and even severely: " You must go 
 right away. You can catch up with them yet, and 
 beat them, and — and — win her." Nuova had 
 
Herojinds JsTuova in the Garden 139 
 
 grown more excited and earnest as she continued 
 urging him, but her voice broke a little as she 
 uttered the last words. 
 
 Hero, paying too little attention to her manner 
 and reading nothing in it, so seized was he by sur- 
 prise at Nuova's new attitude, was yet doggedly 
 intent on speaking out his own feelings. " No, I 
 am not going after the Princess," he declared, 
 speaking almost roughly in his vehemence. " I 
 stopped flying because I wished to, and I came 
 here because I wished to, and I shall talk to you 
 because I wish to. You musi hear me ! Nuova, 
 it is not the Princess that I love; it is you." Nu- 
 ova started. "Yes, you; just you; all you. I love 
 you, Nuova." 
 
 Nuova had stood rigidly at first, but then un- 
 consciously swayed a little toward him. Then she 
 caught herself and stepped back, all the time star- 
 ing at him fixedly. He leaned toward her as he 
 finished speaking, but made no other motion. 
 
 Nuova began to speak, still holding herself rigid 
 and staring at him. She spoke in an even, monot- 
 onous voice, even mechanically, and as if directed 
 by some foreign influence. 
 
140 JVuova, or The J^ew Bee 
 
 "You cannot love me," she said. "You can 
 only love a Princess. I cannot love you. I cannot 
 love anybody. There are other things for me to 
 do. I have not cleaned floors ; I must clean floors. 
 And you, you must chase Princesses, chase Prin- 
 cesses, chase — Princesses — all — the — time." 
 Her voice trailed away into tense silence, and she 
 swayed as if about to fall, but recovered herself, 
 and half- turned as if to move away. 
 
 Hero stepped forward, caught hold of her 
 roughly, and spoke harshly. " You shall not clean 
 floors," he said, "and I will not court the Princess." 
 Then suddenly he spoke tenderly, " Nuova, I love 
 you. Saggia says I can't ; all of them say I can't ; 
 you say I can't. Well, I do. That is all. That is 
 the answer. I have never loved a Princess and I 
 do love you ; I have loved you from the mo- 
 ment I saw you." He spoke more impetuously. 
 "I did n't know what it was at first; now I do. I 
 found out when I started to fly after Principessa. 
 I can fly faster than any other drone ; yet every 
 one was beating me. I can fly higher than any 
 other bee ; but I could n't rise at all. Why? Be- 
 cause o{ you, Nuova; because I XoveAyou, Nuova, 
 
'Nuova, I love you" {pa^e 140) 
 
Herojinds JsTuova in the Garden 141 
 
 and could not love Principessa. And they say 
 that you cannot love me. Saggia says so, does 
 she? — and all of them say so, do they? — and 
 you say so, do you ? Well, they are all mistaken. 
 Just as they are all mistaken about me. I can love 
 you, because I do. You can love me, because you 
 are going to. You were not an Amazon, yet you 
 fought. You are not a Princess, but you are going 
 to love. I can teach you ; I will teach you." 
 
 Nuova was almost carried away by Hero's 
 speech — and her own inclinations. But she still 
 fought blindly and feebly against what she wanted 
 most. "No, no," she stammered; " I must work; 
 I must go ; I am only a worker bee ; I cannot 
 love; it is all fixed; it has been that way for a 
 long time ; / know ; Saggia knows ; Beffa — " 
 
 She stopped short, remembering some of Beffa's 
 cryptic words. 
 
 Just then Beffa's voice was heard. He was com- 
 ing toward them hopping and singing. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 The Happy Ending 
 
 Beffa had not been able to hold the foragers any 
 longer away from that part of the garden where 
 Nuova and Hero were. The flowers here were 
 more abundant and sweeter with honey, and the 
 bees soon forgot their fright of the toad they had 
 not seen — and that Beffa had not, either. 
 
 Hero and Nuova were still concealed by the 
 bush, behind which they stood, from the return- 
 ing bees, but it was only a matter of a short time 
 before they would certainly be seen. Beffa, there- 
 fore, came hopping toward them and singing. He 
 could at least warn them of the approach of the 
 others. So he sang loudly : 
 
 " Ah, well, who knows? 
 Ah, well, who knows? 
 The old world for the old bee; 
 The new world for the new; 
 For who may know the real truth? 
 The untrue may be true. 
 Ah, well, who knows? 
 Ah, well, who knows? " 
 
The Happy Ending 143 
 
 Hero turned triumphantly to Nuova. "Yes, 
 yes, you hear?" he said. "Beffa knows. Say it; 
 say it. Befifa knows : not Saggia ; not the others ; 
 but Befifa. They are all bhnd. They only see what 
 has been, but Beffa sees what may be. And you see 
 it, Nuova, and I see it. You are a new bee, Nuova, 
 and so is Beffa, and so am I. And we shall do new 
 things ; live a new life. Ah, Nuova, my little Nuova I 
 I love you, and you love me. My httle Nuova I " 
 
 Nuova could say nothing, do nothing. It was 
 too much. She could only look up through a mist 
 of tears into Hero's face and smile happily at him ; 
 it was half-smiling, half-crying, but unmistakable 
 to Hero for what it truly was ; the full revelation 
 of Nuova's consent to all he had said. They stood 
 together, silent in their great happiness. And thus 
 Uno saw them. Uno was the first of the returned 
 foragers to come, in seeking new flowers, around 
 the bush and in sight of them. She stared at them 
 amazed. Then, angry and malevolent, she beck- 
 oned, without calling out, to her companions to 
 come to her. They crowded up and looked where 
 Uno pointed. They were astounded and outraged. 
 Uno first spoke up. 
 
144 J^uova, or The JSTew Bee 
 
 " They call themselves bees ! " she said with 
 scorn and malice. 
 
 "Beasts, rather!" said Due similarly. 
 
 " No, human beings," said Tre. " Like the 
 daughter of the owner of the garden and her 
 lover. In secret, and against all the customs. 
 Shame and scandal! " 
 
 "Drive them out! Kill them!" burst out all 
 the other bees, who had come crowding up at the 
 words of Uno, Due, and Tre. "Call the Ama- 
 zons ! Sting them to death ! Hero, the faithless 
 one! Nuova, the silly new bee! Hero, our finest 
 drone ! Nuova, the pretty little nurse ! Traitors ! 
 Kill them!" 
 
 It was a terrible moment for Nuova and Hero, 
 for death looked them in the face. But they stood 
 quietly side by side realizing their impending 
 fate, yet fearless in their exaltation. Neither one 
 spoke. They looked at each other with great 
 eyes shining with love and happiness. Death — 
 together — was such a little thing. It was even 
 a thing, under the circumstances, to be courted. 
 There seemed, indeed, nothing else that could 
 be a "happy ending" for Nuova and Hero's ro- 
 
The Happ-y Ending 145 
 
 mance. And as the Amazons pressed forward 
 with lances set and already almost touching the 
 devoted pair, it seemed to be the inevitable and 
 immediate end. Yet, just at the moment when 
 Nuova, with one last look of love and joy to 
 Hero, turned full toward the shining lance points 
 as if to say, "Welcome, sweet Death ! " something 
 happened. 
 
 A cry from the air just above them was heard. 
 A messenger bee, greatly excited and almost 
 breathless, was dropping down to them and gasp- 
 ing: "The Princess! The Princess! The Princess 
 is lost! The Bee-Bird has caught the Princess! " 
 
 The mob about Hero and Nuova stopped in 
 its attack and stood still, thunderstruck by the 
 news. The messenger dropped to the grass just 
 between the foremost Amazons and the pair of 
 lovers, and there collapsed with fatigue and grief 
 She was caught and supported by Saggia and 
 Beffa, who had pushed forward out of the crowd 
 at the first cry from the messenger. 
 
 The horror-stricken bees were dumb for a 
 moment, overwhelmed by the catastrophe. Then 
 they began to call out, all speaking confusedly 
 
1 46 JYuova, or The JYew Bee 
 
 together: "The Princess is lost! The Bee-Bird 
 has killed Principessa! Our only Princess! The 
 old Queen gone, the new Queen killed ! Our hive 
 is doomed ! We are queenless ! No more children 
 in our hive ! It is our end ! " 
 
 All the while they were speaking they surged 
 back and forth, turning to each other. They 
 seemed utterly at a loss what to do. None any 
 longer paid any attention to Nuova and Hero 
 standing there, still silent and motionless to- 
 gether, as if with no more thought of their pres- 
 ent momentary escape from the death that was 
 so close to them than they had had for their 
 apparent certain destruction a moment before. 
 
 Saggia had not called out with the other bees. 
 Nor had she moved away from her position near 
 Hero and Nuova, where she was still supporting 
 the messenger. But she had been looking keenly 
 first at the shouting bees and then at Nuova and 
 Hero. Her face was alight with a new thought 
 and strong purpose. As the cries of the bees died 
 down from exhaustion for a moment, she lifted 
 her head and began to speak in a loud, clear 
 voice. 
 
The Prince .s 5 
 
 is lo^t '." 
 
The H.aj[ijiy Ending 147 
 
 '* Bees," she said, " a terrible thing has happened 
 to usi " Some of the bees cried out again in lam- 
 entation. Saggia paused a moment till there was 
 silence again. Then she went on. 
 
 "But we stand before a wonderful happening 
 that may be our saving." As she said this, she 
 half- turned toward Hero and Nuova so as to call 
 the attention of the bees to them. As she did this 
 a few bees, notably Uno, Due, and Tre, began to 
 gesture angrily again toward the couple, and to 
 mutter against them. But Saggia paid no atten- 
 tion to this, except perhaps to lift her voice a little 
 higher and to speak more rapidly. 
 
 "I am an old bee," she said, "and know the 
 lore of bees better than any others of you. And 
 I tell you plainly that the death of the Princess 
 does not mean that all is lost. I tell you that we 
 have a means of saving our hive. Sometimes a 
 bee is born, who is not a Princess, but who is 
 of a different sort from the rest of us workers ; 
 a bee who can not only work, but love; who 
 can love and be loved and be the mother of 
 bees." 
 
 She turned now swiftly to Nuova, stretched out 
 
148 JVuova, or The JYew Bee 
 
 her antennae and wings dramatically, and spoke as 
 with the voice of an oracle. 
 
 " Nuova is such a bee ! " she exclaimed solemnly. 
 " Nuova can be a Queen for us ! She loves Hero. 
 Do you, Nuova ? " Nuova turned a rapt face up to 
 Hero's. 
 
 "And Hero loves Nuova. Do you. Hero?" 
 Hero leaned down to Nuova and kissed her. 
 
 Saggia turned again to the bees. " That Hero 
 loves Nuova proves that she can be loved ; that 
 Nuova loves Hero proves that she can be our 
 Queen. Let Nuova, the new bee, be our new 
 Queen ! " 
 
 The bees were already buzzing and fluttering 
 about in great excitement again. They were not 
 able to comprehend immediately all that Saggia's 
 words implied, but they saw in them a hope for 
 their hive, and some of the bees already began 
 to call out joyously. Just then Beffa began dancing 
 vigorously and waving his wings and antennae in 
 triumph and singing loudly and clearly : 
 
 "Bee-Bird may yet be beaten ; 
 We yet may peal the wedding bell, 
 Although our Queen is eaten !" 
 
The Happy Ending 149 
 
 Then he made a grand whirl which brought him 
 squarely in front of Nuova, and with a deep curtsy 
 and elaborate gesture he called out to all the bees, 
 like a herald: 
 
 " The Queen has passed. Long live the Queen I " 
 
 And Saggia immediately echoed him, also bow- 
 ing low before Nuova: "The Queen has passed. 
 Long live the Queen ! " 
 
 Other bees took up the shout, which soon 
 spread to all. Beffa beckoned all to follow him in 
 a triumphal march and dance around the amazed 
 and happy pair, and altogether they set up a great 
 song of joy and triumph. Nuova and Hero were 
 not only saved, but they were become in a second 
 King and Queen of the hive. It was breath-taking. 
 They could only look at each other in utter thanks- 
 giving and love. But as Beffa, tiring of the exer- 
 tion of the dance, stopped by the side of Nuova, 
 she put out an antenna caressingly to him and 
 then turned to Hero. 
 
 " Hero, my King," she said proudly. 
 
 " Hero, our King !" proudly shouted all the bees. 
 
 And then she turned to Beffa. 
 
 "Beffa, my jester," she said lovingly. 
 
150 JVuova, or The Mew Bee 
 
 "Beffa, our jester! " shouted all the bees. 
 Beffa gave a little hop; then looking up at Nu- 
 ova, he sang: 
 
 " Ah, well, who knows? 
 Ah, well, who knows ? " 
 
 THE END 
 
(3tbe ffliVJEtsifte '^xt0 
 
 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 IT . S A