Revolution

Revolution

            ‘The queen was very grumpy this morning,’ said Dudley. ‘I think she is getting old and crotchety.’

            Howard nodded his head sagely. ‘I quite agree. She is not the power she used to be. In the old days she would never have allowed all the young bees to lounge around her presence chamber chattering and making a noise. She would have sent them scattering about their business, finding new flowers or helping the nursemaids feed the young.

            ‘That’s it,’ agreed Dudley, ‘she is no longer young. And if she is no longer young, then…’

            ‘Then what? asked Howard. ‘An older queen is a wiser queen. She may still lead the hive, inspire us all to greater and higher things.’

            ‘Are you inspired by this queen? Surely a young queen would bring excitement to the court, lead us all in a new spirit of entrepreneurship, making us the leading hive of the district, keeping all the flowers and trees of the churchyard for ourselves. She will not last forever, of course, but until then the hive will merely shrink and decline. It is every thinking bee’s duty to ensure that does not happen.’

            ‘So,’ said Howard, ‘what you mean is?’

            ‘We should get rid of the queen,’ whispered Dudley, carefully looking round to check no-one was listening.

            ‘How do we do that? The two of us are powerless on our own.’

            ‘I have friends,’ said Dudley. ‘And so do you. Speak to your friends, sound them out. Put the matter to them in the way we have done together. Consider which of them can be trusted to join us and which must be kept in ignorance of our plans. Once you have gathered around you a trusted team we will meet again; same time next week. In the mean time I will devise a plan for us to rid ourselves of this decrepit and useless queen.’

            Howard and Dudley had spoken quietly and in private, so it is a mystery how Cecil came to be aware of the plot. Perhaps someone had spoken out of turn, excited by an overdose of Queen’s jelly or intoxicated by the smell of the verbena plant. Maybe neither of those things, for Cecil knew everything. Not a grub turned over in bed or a soldier went to sleep on guard duty without it coming to Cecil’s attention. His spies were everywhere.

            By the following week three of them were part of the secret discussion held on the as yet unoccupied third floor which the beekeeper had installed in anticipation of a bumper harvest. Speeches were fierce and agitated, demanding immediate action. Guy was all for marching down to the royal chambers immediately, forcing their way in and tearing the old queen to pieces.

Thomas was more conciliatory. ‘We have no replacement queen,’ he said. ‘To kill or expel the present queen would leave us without a leader and breeder. We must wait until a new queen is ready. There are five queen cells hanging from the base of the breeding frame. Let us choose the strongest of the five and feed up the grub inside with the finest jelly and honey. When the grub has hatched into a strong and robust queen, then we have our replacement and can dispose of the crotchety old woman. I will gather together a small feeding team to rear the young princess, while Dudley and Howard prepare a plan for the deposing of the monarch.’

All agreed and were given their individual tasks, dispersing to their allotted places. But not before three of them had poured reports and suggestions into Cecil’s attentive ear. Naturally, he felt it his duty to carry those reports and suggestions to the queen.

It was true what Howard, Dudley and Thomas had said, the queen was certainly both old and crotchety. Now she was furious as well. ‘I will have them torn limb from limb, from limb, from limb, from limb, from limb!’ she shrieked. ‘Their wings powdered to ashes, their bodies fed to the wasps. All of the queen cells starved until the grubs are no use even as the lowest workers. I will not have it! I will not!’

Cecil sat quiet, waiting for her to calm down. ‘Your majesty has many supporters,’ he told her, ‘by far outnumbering the plotters. Besides, our people are the oldest and wisest of the hive. Dudley’s people are all young hotheads, ready for any sort of change, the sooner the better, with no consideration for the future. Your majesty is still very young and fertile,’ he continued, crossing all six legs as he did so, ‘producing almost ten grubs every day. We wise old men realise the growth of the hive is safe in your majesty’s keeping. Together your Council will monitor the plot and devise ways to confound it. There will be no revolution while I am in charge of security.’

The plot grew steadily, in tune with the growth of the new queen cell. Dudley and Howard gathered their followers, issued instructions on their actions on hatching day, putting together a small team to assassinate the old queen the moment the new one had left the hive on her first and only flight. They would have preferred not to leave the hive at all, but the queen’s flight is her coronation, where she is fertilised by her court before returning in triumph.

‘What’s the buzz around the hive?’ asked Dudley. ‘How many do we have with us?’

‘Too many to count,’ said Howard, who had never been very good at arithmetic. ‘And all fit, athletic, bright young things, ready to pledge devotion to Queen Mary. My spies in the nursery tell me the queen will be hatched, dry and ready to fly by tomorrow afternoon.’

Cecil’s spies had told him exactly the same. ‘Now is the time to destroy the queen cell,’ said Neville. ‘With no alternative queen the revolt will die down.’

‘Not at all,’ objected Cecil. Killing queen cells sets a bad precedent. ‘We will always be in need of a new queen in case something happens to the existing one or she stops laying. Let us stick to our plan. Brief your worker bees and have them on stand-bye for tomorrow afternoon.’

Next day, the sun shone bright and clear. Foragers were out early, grubs hatched from their cells and the hive pulsated with activity. Down in the basement the cover on the new queen cell burst open and its occupant appeared, resplendent in black and brilliant yellow. ‘Long live queen Mary!’ shouted her attendants. ‘Long live the queen!’

Dudley’s men hastened her upstairs to the landing platform where she could stretch and dry her new wings. The younger bees rushed to form up behind her, falling over one another in their haste. Howard fussed around, pushing and shoving them into flight formation, one eye all the time on Queen Mary herself, checking whether she was ready to take off.

‘Five, four, three, two, one,’ he chanted as she prepared herself, then took off into the blue sky beyond. It was a magnificent sight, thousands of courtiers surrounding the queen as she flew lazily around the churchyard. As the afternoon wore on the swarm became more and more frantic, searching for a resting place now their fertilisation task was over. ‘We return to the hive,’ shouted Howard. ‘Take over the nursery, occupy the palace, eject old Queen Bess, prepare ourselves to serve Queen Mary. Long live the queen!’

‘Long live the queen,’ shouted the courtiers, now weary following their exciting afternoon.

Cecil had been busy on his own account. Wave after wave of worker bees had been drafted in, packing the entrance gate on the landing stage with layer after layer of bees wax until only a minute hole remained, large enough for a single bee. His soldiers massed behind the barrier as the revolutionaries arrived, trying to force their way in by sheer weight of numbers. So fiercely did Cecil’s bees fight that the weary courtiers could make no progress, leaving Dudley and Howard fuming on a nearby chestnut branch.

‘They are defeated,’ said Neville as night fell. ‘See, the swarm has fled across the fields to the copse by the river.’

‘Where they will set up their own hive, far from us with their own farm from which to gather the nectar,’ added Cecil. ‘This time we have been successful and Queen Bess will see us through another year. But by next summer she will be old and grey, hardly able to produce more than one or two grubs to replace those of us old timers who will not survive the winter. Next spring, Neville, you and I must be revolutionaries ourselves, put in place a fresh ne queen. Queen Bess will at last be deposed and we will be the queenmakers.’