Trog

'Excuse me!', said bee and beekeeper simultaneously as they narrowly avoided a collision. The beekeeper had decided to check round the hive entrances to see that all was well now that the air was warm enough to encourage hive-work and she wanted to see that the bees were in good enough heart to throw out some of the accumulated floor debris.

The wee bee, a bit breathless – both with the effort of flying after a long time in the cluster, and with the excitement of any young creature with news to tell – dashed indoors to tell the others what she'd seen.

'There's a large creature with a dark green top and blue legs and mouse-coloured fur on top, just outside the hive.'

Mitzzi took a look through the mouseguard. 'It's just the beekeeper.'

'It can't be,' said the wee bee, 'The beekeeper is a large creature with a white top, green legs and a huge, flat, white head. That's not her, I mean, she, I mean it.'

Beatrice looked at the wee bee. Had she had eyebrows she would probably have raised one. Clearly at least one small bee had been dozing during grammar lessons.

The wee bee continued, 'Anyway, it doesn't smell like the beekeeper. She smells of leather and wax and propolis with faint overtones of honey.' She stopped before anybee could accuse her of sounding like a wine label. 'This one smells of … er … horse, and manure and .. er .. well, pretty smelly really.'

There was a high, giggly buzz from a number of the younger bees. Beatrice was not amused. 'It's very impolite beehaviour to call someone smelly.', she said. The wee bee drooped her antennae in an apologetic manner, but not for long.

Another bee came in with more news. 'Third from the left has died out.', she said. 'Isolation starvation, according to what the beekeeper wrote in her notebook.' (This bee had taught herself to decipher the beekeeper's scribblings, which was impressive as the beekeeper herself had trouble reading them on many occasions.) The bees kept a moment's respectful silence for the loss of so many of their own then, as humans do, reminisced.

'I'm sorry to see them go, but they were an ill-bred lot. Always the first to come robbing, and I don't know why the beekeeper put up with them. They stung her often enough.'

'She always gave them the benefit of the doubt.' said another. 'They could beehave well enough when they wanted to.'

'Well, it means extra rations for us,' said Beatrice, ever-practical, 'once the beekeeper's checked they didn't die of anything nastier than Minus Nine Celsius.'

'Minus Nine Celsius. Minus Nine Celsius,' muttered the wee bee, resolving to try and find out what sort of bee disease that might be. She would ask Mitzzi sometime when the others weren't around.