Trog

The beekeeper had been busy before Christmas boiling up sugar for bee candy and leaving it to set overnight. The next day she scraped the half-set, gooey mess out of the moulds into a pan and boiled it all again before pouring it back into the now very sticky moulds.

This time it worked and on Christmas Eve she headed out to the apiary with the bees' Christmas presents all nicely wrapped and stacked on a tray. The temperature had at last risen above freezing and as she removed each roof, each bit of polystyrene and finally the bits of slate over each feed hole, she was glad to see bees alive and active in all the hives. She worked fast so as not to chill the bees unnecessarily. They seemed glad to have the candy as there was a happy buzz coming through the mouseguards as she moved from hive to hive.

One colony was ready to welcome her (I think we can all guess which one). As the slate came off the feed hole, Mitzzi tapped the youngest bee on one of her shoulders and a very quiet buzz, inaudible to the beekeeper, began. The rest of the colony joined in as candy was put over the feed hole and slate, insulation and roof were replaced. Listening at the mouseguard, the beekeeper could have sworn the modulated buzzing sounded remarkably like 'Once in Royal David's City'. By the time the colony got to 'O Come all ye Faithful', she was shaking her head and resolving to stay off the mulled wine for a while, or at least to dilute it better in future.