The Bees: A Novel

by Laline Paull

  Flora’s daughter ran behind her down the steep dark staircase, a weight of bees behind them. Every few steps she buzzed her abdomen hard against the comb walls as if she would break them. Flora feared she was mad but then knew it for a rallying call, for as they emerged through the morgue the bottom story of the hive was packed with thousands of sisters fighting the intruding force of wasps.

  With a great battle cry, Flora’s daughter threw herself into the fray, slashing forward, tearing heads from bodies and killing all she could so that the wasps began screaming in fear and retreating. Behind her the bees roared in rage and triumph, breathing in her scent for courage and pushing forward to rout the wasps until none was left alive inside the hive and those few who survived fled the landing board.

  STUNNED BY THE VASTNESS of the orchard world, Flora’s daughter staggered in the dazzling bright air. She lost control of her antennae and her panic streamed. She tried to push her way back inside from the landing board, but it was too crowded, for she had rallied all the bees who would come to follow her.

  “The Sage have led the victory!” A priestess ran out onto the board, her wings ripped, one antennae broken. “Our princess lives—come back to crown her. And as for your kin”—she spat at Flora and her daughter—“death within or exile without; that is your fate. The one true Queen survives!”

  Looking out beyond the orchard, Flora did not answer. In the distance, a huge dark veil rose and fell in the blue air. The high whine of the wasp army grew louder, and the black veil drew together, building its power as it approached.

  “They have joined many colonies together.” Feeling her daughter’s fear beside her, Flora forced her voice to stay strong as she spoke to the priestess. “We cannot fight them, we must save ourselves—”

  “Flee like cowards?” The priestess’s eyes were wild. “The Sage will triumph—with Divine Right!”

  Flora grabbed the priestess and shook her. “Do you not understand yet? Our hive is lost and all who stay will perish! It is too late!”

  “You address the Melissae, invincible kin of Queens!” The priestess shook herself free and ran back inside. “Strength in Sage!” she screamed. “Come now, the devout, and stand together!”

  “You call them to their deaths!” Flora shouted after her. But when she turned to her daughter and the massed kins crowding out onto the landing board, her heart failed her. The black cloud spread wider across the sky and the buzzing of the wasps filled their minds.

  The pressure of bees fleeing from within the hive forced more and more of them out onto the landing board, and those nearest the edge were pushed off so that they whirled in terror above the hive. Too hoarse to speak, Flora tried to bite and push her daughter off the edge, but she was too strong and paralyzed by the height of the sky and the oncoming wasps.

  Some of the drones came crashing out of the hive, battered and bloody, some burned with wasp venom on their feet. Flora grabbed her daughter’s antennae and twined them with her own. As Lily 500 had once done to her, with a great burst of concentration she forced all her knowledge into her daughter’s mind.

  LEAD YOUR PEOPLE! she thought to her with all her strength. She felt her daughter’s antennae pulsing in pain but she did not let go. SAVE THEM NOW!

  “How?” her daughter cried out. “I do not know—” But even as she spoke, her engine thundered to life, its sound ripping the sky and tearing aside the sound of the oncoming army. Her massive copper wings hummed to power and her scent streamed behind her like a cloak. Roaring their engines, the orchard bees launched themselves up behind her, a great soaring army rising into the air, blood and honey on their feet, war on their wings.

  Flora hurled herself up beside her daughter, guiding her higher and higher up to the colder air where the wasps would not fly. The huge buzzing army passed beneath them, and the bees could smell the sugar they had fed on, which drove the rage of their attack.

  You will bring disaster on your hive.

  Flora watched in horror as the black cloud began its descent on the queenless hive, smelling of honey and defended only by the empty prayers of the remaining Sage.

  Forty-Three

  THE GREAT SWIRLING CLOUD OF FLEEING ORCHARD BEES lifted in the wind, blank arable fields spinning below them. Flora saw that their mass grew thinner and they spread wider across the sky, for without a dance to follow, none of the foragers had a clear destination and so reverted to what they knew—scouting for the best scent of nectar. Behind them the great cloud of house bees struggled to stay close to Flora’s daughter, but some began to break away to follow leading foragers and others began to lag behind, the whole swarm threatening to disperse. If they flew on directionless they would tire, the birds would take them, or they would scatter and all would be lost. Flora fought her way into the wind and mass of wingbeats to find her daughter’s scent.

  She was a most majestic young creature, her dark bands sparkling, russet fur lit up, and her broad face strange and terrifying. Flora tried to signal to her to go lower, but the princess was carried higher on the current she had found. Flora smelled what she followed—it was hyacinth, and it came from the town.

  “No, we must not go there—” Flora felt a surge of alarm, though she did not know why. “There is no shelter—”

  But the fragrance grew stronger, and other bees smelled it too. All at once the swarm was possessed by hunger; their crops were empty and light and their minds dizzy. There was nothing Flora could do but fly with her daughter. As the swarm began its descent, she located the flowers in the middle of a shopping plaza busy with people. Uniformed gardeners pulled the hyacinth plants from the soil of big concrete tubs, and threw them into the back of a truck.

  People began screaming as the swarm came down from the sky. They ran for safety as the bees spread out and searched the half-dead flowers, but their scent was empty promise, for they were bred for show, not pollen. Angry and disappointed, the bees buzzed helplessly above the truck.

  “You must stop,” Flora begged her daughter. “If you settle, so will they, and then we can think. Darling child, I beg you.”

  The dark princess slowed her wingbeats and fell behind her mother. Not knowing what else to do, Flora landed on some warm metal that smelled benign. Her daughter fluttered down beside her and clung to her, shaking with adrenaline.

  Even in this exposure and fear, it was bliss to press her child close to her, this huge princess who held their lives in hers. The air shimmered with wings as the thousands of sisters gathered together as they had done in the Cluster, many drones among them too, for without their sisters they would die. Hanging from the hand of a statue, like a great dark sack of treasure, the colony pulled close together around their princess.

  Once more Flora pressed her antennae close to her daughter’s. “If we stay here, we will die.”

  Her daughter looked at her with great innocent eyes, and Flora knew that she was stunned from her fight and her emergence. She could not lead; she was too young.

  “Madam, can we help?” Sanitation workers squeezed beside them, their eyes bright and antennae high. “Tell us how.”

  “I do not know.” Flora tried not to cry.

  Madness. Sister against sister. Disaster.

  “Madam Forager, you must.” One of them leaned forward to her. “You have fought wasps and served the Queen. You have laid an egg for our kin and spent the night outside the hive without dying!”

  It was true. Flora’s antennae surged with memories. The tree in the forest. The Queen’s Library. The last panel, the comet from the cradle. Not a star in the sky, but a swarm from the hive—the hive was the cradle, and the swarm its only true child, which she must nurse to safety.

  “Quickly,” she said to them. “Who is strong? Who can dance?”

  Two came forward, their gazes dark and direct.

  “All of us, Madam. We learned in the Cluster.”

  “Then follow.” Flora began to dance on the back of the mass of bees, as if they were the comb floor
of the Dance Hall. “You must learn this exact direction if you would save us.” She checked the position of the sun, then began dancing out the steps to the hollow tree, and the line of hills, and its scent of beech, hollow beech, until she felt the rhythm repeated back by the two flora dancers, exact and precise. Bees below them shifted and cried out in agitation, but Flora’s pupils danced on, using their feet to spread the rhythm and the information to every bee they touched. Only when Flora felt the rhythm catch in other parts of the swarm did she go back to her daughter.

  The dark princess’s face had changed again. It was older, more beautiful, and more knowing.

  “I am not Queen,” she told her mother, “until I mate.”

  “First we must find safety,” Flora said. “I know where we must go.” She could feel vibrations going through the hanging swarm, stronger and wider as hundreds, then thousands of bees were stirring to the news. She wanted to ask the foragers to keep the swarm contained—but it was hard to look away from her daughter. Then she smelled Linden close by.

  “Ever at your service, Madam.” He stood by her side, old and ragged and beloved to her eyes.

  Flora’s heart fell from the sky. “I did not call you.”

  “No.” The dark princess looked at him. “I did.”

  Linden’s whole face and body changed before Flora’s eyes. He grew young and handsome, and his scent flushed strong.

  “Choose another . . .” Flora whispered to her daughter. “There are others—”

  “But he is best,” her daughter said. “That is why you love him.” She started her engine, and with thunderous roaring of the Holy Chord, the dark comet of the swarm lifted into the air, the true child of the hive.

  UP IT WENT, over the gray and red blocks of the town and its tiny patchwork of gardens. No longer dull and dark inside the hive, the gleaming bronze floras had spread the message fast, for many knew the way and flew as outriders, keeping the swarm tight to contain it. Flora kept up beside her daughter, the wind streaming fast and loud around them so that she could not beg again that her old friend be spared—

  Linden flew close by them, and she looked at him one last time. He had grown young with his great task, the whole point of his life. He did not look back, his gaze locked on her beautiful daughter, intent in readiness for his sole task. He let his scent flow strong and high, and other drones smelled it too, and raised their own pheromones in banners of lust. Excitement spread through the swarm, and the sound of its passage grew loud above the fields. Flora looked at her dazzling daughter, her face no longer strange but a new epitome of beauty.

  They were over the fields and the hills were in sight. Flora’s body was tiring, but they were nearly there. Then her daughter glanced around and looked directly at Linden. A sweet musk spread behind her, and with a burst of speed she broke through to the front of the swarm. Flora heard the sharp rise in the high timbre of Linden’s thoracic engine as he raced in pursuit of her daughter, a cloud of his scent blowing over her. The princess rose up above the swarm where all could see her, and circled to spread her scent and let every drone smell it.

  Her cuticle glittered blue-black in the sun, her russet fur glowed bright red, and her wings beat bronze and gold sparks from the air. Flora drew on all her power to keep up and watch, admiring her daughter’s strong young legs folded tight beneath her elegant thorax. She could not see Linden—and then her daughter roared in surprise as he came upon her from above, seizing her with a new strength.

  At his intimate grasp the princess soared higher above the swarm, his body fused tight against her for all to see.

  The swarm chased below them, as faster and faster the princess fled the drone on her back, until with a great cry of ecstasy he flung himself away from her.

  “It is done,” Flora cried out. “It is done—” She watched the tiny speck of Linden’s body spinning down toward the fields. She tore her eyes away and back to her daughter, whirling high to spread her mated scent across the air. The bees breathed it and cheered as a cordon of Flora ladies-in-waiting rose up to escort their princess back down to the safety of the swarm, Linden’s organ hanging as proof from her body.

  She is mated!

  The princess is mated!

  The Queen is mated!

  The joyful cries gathered the swarm together, tightening all the sisters as they rushed to breathe the stunning sexual perfume of their powerful new Queen. Other drones raced ahead to try to catch her too, but the new Queen was not to be caught again without consent, and she sped ahead, the swarm behind her.

  Flora drew on all her strength to keep up with her mated daughter, but the swarm was young and fast, and she could only hold on to the tail of it as they flew.

  The great blank fields fell back and the forest came closer. She could no longer feel her body, and used all her strength to remember the destination.

  The hollow tree. The forest.

  A ragged silver-winged forager emerged from the air and flew beside her.

  “You danced well. You have served your hive.” Lily 500 smiled at Flora. Praise end your days.

  Praise end your days, Flora thought back to her, and the words were sweet.

  Her wingbeats slowed and the swarm moved on without her. She saw them enter the forest on the edge of the Weald. She smelled the warming earth, and the deep fragrance of the trees, and it was easy to follow the swarm by the musk of the mated Queen’s scent, and the Holy Chord rising from the forest. Below her on the ground tiny blue speedwell flowers opened their little mouths as they felt the bees passing, and the air was laced with fragrance.

  Flora’s vision sharpened. Her body slowed and weakened, yet still she watched in eagerness as the swarm searched through the trees. She heard the sanitation workers calling out to each other, repeating her coordinates as they drew closer and closer—and then there was a shout and a great cheering, for they had found the hollow beech.

  My daughter, my fierce, beloved daughter—

  The dark and glorious princess flew down and settled on a branch. While scouts went in to check the tree, thousands of bees hovered around her while they waited, humming the Holy Chord. Some settled beside her and began to lick the sperm from her body, and the strong scent of the kin of Flora mingled with the sweetness of the kin of Linden and floated up through the leaves of the forest.

  The scouts reemerged, and began to lay their homecoming marker on the lip of the hole in the tree. The bees cried out in joy, to the forest and the sky, “Long live the Queen! Long live the Queen!” Again and again they cheered, and Flora wanted to join with it but all she could do was gaze on the newly crowned Queen, her heart filled with love. She watched the new Flora ladies-in-waiting kiss and lick her, and then they escorted her into her new home.

  A new Devotion drifted through the forest, the scent of a wild, dark young Queen, strong and fertile. The sound of sisters rejoicing stirred the leaves and drew nectar from the flowers. Bees streamed down from the bright air into the dark fissure in the beech tree.

  Flora could no longer move, but she smelled speedwell, and bluebells, and cyclamen, and felt the cool, smooth leaves of aconite holding her body. She wrapped herself in the rich perfume of the forest floor and watched until the last bee flew into the tree. Then she rested.

  Epilogue

  THE APPLE TREES WERE IN FULL BLOOM AS THE MAN, HIS wife, and their two teenage children came through the orchard. They paused near the old hive. The man let a long coil of black ribbon unspool from his hand.

  “So, this is a condition of Grandpa’s will. It’s from the olden days, when people thought the bees needed to be told important family news. Births, deaths, and marriages.” The man unfolded a piece of paper. “He even wrote it all out.”

  Then he stepped forward to the hive and tied the black ribbon around it, before knocking on it softly, three times.

  “It is my sad duty to inform you,” he read, “that your beekeeper, my father, has died. He will no longer be taking care of you, and he asks you t
o be patient with your new custodian.”

  The tone in his voice made his wife put her arms around him. He held her as he folded the paper back into his pocket, then addressed the hive again.

  “And I have something else to say, for myself. I am very sorry that I have sold this orchard, and—I ask your forgiveness for what will happen.” He wiped his eyes.

  “Dad.” His daughter crouched down and put her ear against the hive. “Listen.”

  “Careful!” But he too crouched down and put his ear to the wood. They looked at each other. Then he moved around and looked into the hole on the landing board. His wife drew back.

  “Please, both of you, be careful—”

  “I can’t hear a thing,” he said. “I cannot see a single bee.”

  His son smiled. “Dad! They went with him!”

  The family looked up into the bright and empty sky.

  Acknowledgments

  For making it happen: my agents Simon Trewin, in London, and Dorian Karchmar, in New York. Thank you both so much.

  For making it better: my editor, Lee Boudreaux—an education and a pleasure to work with you; my thanks also to Clare Reihill for her insight, and to Iris Tupholme for her support.

  My thanks to all the teams at Ecco, 4th Estate, and HarperCollins Canada, and to my foreign rights agent at WME, Annemarie Blumenhagen. For the two superb covers: Steve Attardo and Alison Saltzman for Ecco, and Jo Walker for 4th Estate.

  For good fellowship: Richard Skinner and the Faber group of 2012, with honorable mention to the most generous polymath that is Cal Moriarty.

  For sharing her knowledge and guiding my research: Dr. Margaret Couvillon. I am also indebted to the work of biologists Dr. Francis Ratnieks, Dr. Thomas Seeley, and Bert Holldobler and E. O. Wilson. All mistakes are my own.