The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [27]
Chief among the everyday miracles within the hive is that of how the first bee discovered the means by which watery nectar, vulnerable to spoilage, might be made to keep the hive not only through the winter, but through a score of winters. Can one conceive of an accidental discovery, a happenstance that arranged for the hive sisters to be arrayed en masse at the mouth of their hive, fanning their wings so vigorously and for so long that the nectar they had gathered evaporated in the draught, growing thick and imperishable? And yet if not an accident, we are left with two equally unsatisfactory explanations: a Creator's design, or a hive intelligence.
Suddenly a tiny brown object flashed towards where I sat and began to snap and growl furiously at my boot-laces. I quelled the impulse to kick the beast over the cliff, and received the apologies of its owner with little sympathy.
“If that dog gets in among the sheep,” I told the girl, “don't be surprised if it feels the end of a shepherd's crook.”
Her boy-friend began to object, then noticed that I was actually a female and toned down his remarks somewhat.
I rose, and continued with my literary stroll.
The language of bees is one of the great mysteries left us in this age, the means by which this genus communicate. For speak they do, to tell their hive-mates of food, to warn of invasion, to exchange the password of identity, to reassure that all is well. Speech among humans is a complex interaction between tongue and teeth, lungs and larynx, driven by mind and a thousand generations of tradition.
But what if we humans had developed along another line than that of primate? What if, instead of manipulative digits and opposing thumbs, we were given only arms, teeth, and wings? If in place of fist and weapon we were given a defence that required us to lay down our own lives? If we lacked the lungs and trachea that gave rise to speech, how would we preserve the intelligence of our own community?
Humans convey meaning in a multitude of ways: the lift of a shoulder, the sideways slip of a gaze, the tensing of small muscles, or the quantity of air passing through the vocal cords. How much more must this be so in a complex hive-mind that lacks the brute communication of words?
One finds common sense and intelligence in the newest of hives and the rawest of virgin queens, a discernment that goes far past mere dumb survival. No beekeeper doubts that the creatures in his charge have their own language, as immediate and real as that which might be found in a village composed entirely of brothers and sisters. However, whether bees communicate by odour, by subtle emanations, by faint song, or by infinitesimal gestures we have yet to discover.
A loud voice greeted me from a few feet away, and I looked up, startled, to see a group of at least twenty young women determinedly equipped for mountain-climbing—all had hiking poles, all sweated under sturdy trousers and heavy Alpine boots. Their leader, a stout bespectacled woman of forty, had hailed me. I paused politely with the book closed over my finger.
“Do you know where we might take some refreshment?” she asked with a touch of desperation.
I looked to see where I was, then pointed towards the distant rise. “You see that tower there? Keep going past it and you'll come to an hotel. I'm sure they'll have ices and tea.”
The entire group thanked me and marched away, their boots thudding on the bare path like so many cattle hooves. I shook my head and resumed my solitary way.
The massacre of the males is a yearly occurrence in the hive—“Delivering over to executioners pale the lazy yawning drone.” When the days close in and the last nectar ceases, the workers cast their gaze upon the drones, whom they have willingly fed and cosseted all the year long, but who are now only a burden on the food reserves, a threat to the future of the hive. So the females rise against the useless males and exterminate them every one, viciously ripping their former charges to pieces and driving any survivors out into the cold.
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