Nuova; or, The New BeeKellogg, Vernon L. (Vernon Lyman)
Science
Nuova; or, The New Bee
Kellogg, Vernon L. (Vernon Lyman)
Bees -- Folklore; Bees -- Juvenile fiction
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
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 different 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 clean yet; and your wings
aren't half dry. Don't be in a hurry!"
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
understood 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
industriously 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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