It started as what seemed a normal day for BUZZ-BUZZ. He was a forager bee in the hive; his job was to travel from his colony to different areas around the community to find pollen. He would usually travel around a half a mile every day.
He gently woke from the honeycomb and wiggled his sticky limbs. He flew by the Queen and her attendants. He could smell the pheromones. Once he left the hive, he saw his pal BIZZ-BAZZ carrying two corpses: a guard and a cleaner. BIZZ-BAZZ was an undertaker; it was his job to throw the dead bodies out of the hive. BUZZ-BUZZ greeted BIZZ-BAZZ with his favourite dance – the floppy wing, and BIZZ-BAZZ responded with the spin crawl dance. Off he went.
The old woman in the house with the overgrown garden was his usual destination to forage. She had been there as long as he remembered. The only problem was her cats. There were almost 12 different cats roaming the grounds, which made the journey treacherous.
BUZZ-BUZZ was almost at the house when he heard human voices and the sound of metal rubbing against metal. He was surprised to see three humans with big, noisy, sharp pieces of metal cutting down the precious flowers and throwing them into big, black bags.
The two humans at the door of the old woman’s house were talking. One said, “What do you mean try talking to her, that woman is crazy!”
His companion agreed: “Her grandchildren sent us to take care of her garden. It is for her own good, I suppose.”
A few seconds after that, the old lady came out and shouted, “What are you doing with my beautiful plant life?”
One of the men replied: “We are just sprucing it up a bit, if that is alright.”
The lady responded: “No, it is not alright; my cats have been playing in these flowers for 22 years and you come and cut down my flowers, and say you’re tidying my garden up!”
The old lady held back a tear as she slammed the door.
BUZZ-BUZZ salvaged what he could from the pollen in one of the big, black bags but since most of the flowers died and their pollen had blown away, he only half-filled his saddlebags. He was thinking about leaving when he sensed the old lady’s sadness, so he flew in through a window and danced a happy dance to try make her feel better. She just looked at him and said, “If only those cruel people could be as understanding as you”.
The lady left the house. BUZZ-BUZZ followed her. On the way she stopped and said, “I’m going to the library to learn more about your kind”.
BUZZ-BUZZ looked for pollen, until the lady left the library carrying a book with the word Bees written on the cover.
The lady told BUZZ-BUZZ that she knew where there was a bench beside a colourful flowerbed where they could both enjoy themselves. When they got there, BUZZ-BUZZ flew into the flowerbed and filled up his saddlebags. The lady sat on the bench and read the book, exclaiming that, “It says here that bees communicate by dancing. Well, that would explain earlier.”
BUZZ-BUZZ did a dance of agreement.
The lady said that she ought to try to learn the different emotions and greetings in bee dance so that she could communicate better with BUZZ-BUZZ. She would say a word, then BUZZ- BUZZ would say that word in bee dance, and she would copy BUZZ-BUZZ. To say good morning, BUZZ-BUZZ did the moon walk and then the lady did the moon walk. Passersby gave strange looks to the lady, as she practised communicating with the tiny bee!
After this she asked, “What is your name?” BUZZ-BUZZ wiggled his antennas. The lady put her hands to her head and wiggled them to repeat his name. She told him that she was called Abigail.
Abigail read a little more of the book while BUZZ-BUZZ played in the flowers. A while later he fell asleep inside a flower until Abigail woke him up to remind him to go home to his hive. BUZZ-BUZZ danced exhaustedly to say, “See you tomorrow!”
The next morning BUZZ-BUZZ woke from his honeycomb and asked to see the Queen. “Make it quick,” she demanded, “as I want to eat this delicious fresh honey.”
“I wish to leave the hive forever,” BUZZ-BUZZ announced. “Your majesty, there is a lonely old human named Abigail, and I want to live with her. I met her on my job when I was foraging for pollen.”
“BEGONE!!!” danced the Queen in an annoyed way.
BUZZ-BUZZ danced happily as he exited the hive.
