ed sisters all
buzzing together.

"One at a time! Let me put down my load. Now, what is it Sacharissa?"
she said.

"Grey Sister--that fluffy one, I mean--she came and said we ought to be
out in the sunshine gathering honey, because life was short. She said
any old bee could attend to our babies, and some day old bees would.
That isn't true, Melissa, is it? No old bees can take us away from our
babies, can they?"

"Of course not. You feed the babies while your heads are soft. When your
heads harden, you go on to field-work. Any one knows that."

"We told her so! We told her so; but she only waved her feelers, and
said we could all lay eggs like Queens if we chose. And I'm afraid
lots of the weaker sisters believe her, and are trying to do it. So
unsettling!"

Sacharissa sped to a sealed worker-cell whose lid pulsated, as the bee
within began to cut its way out.

"Come along, precious!" she murmured, and thinned the frail top from the
other side. A pale, damp, creased thing hoisted itself feebly on to the
comb. Sacharissa's note changed at once. "No time to waste! Go up the
frame and preen yourself!" she said. "Report for nursing-duty in my ward
to-morrow evening at six. Stop a minute. What's the matter with your
third right leg?"

The young bee held it out in silence--unmistakably a drone leg incapable
of packing pollen.

"Thank you. You needn't report till the day after to-morrow." Sacharissa
turned to her companion. "That's the fifth oddity hatched in my ward
since noon. I don't like it."

"There's always a certain number of 'em," said Melissa. "You can't stop
a few working sisters from laying, now and then, when they overfeed
themselves. They only raise dwarf drones."

"But we're hatching out drones with workers' stomachs; workers with
drones' stomachs; and albinoes and mixed-leggers who can't pack
pollen--like that poor little beast yonder. I don't mind dwarf drones
any more than you do (they all die in July), but this steady hatch of
oddities frightens me, Melissa!"

"How narrow of you! They are all so delightfully clever and unusual and
interesting," piped the Wax-moth from a crack above them. "Come here,
you dear, downy duck, and tell us all about your feelings."

"I wish she'd go!" Sacharissa lowered her voice. "She meets
these--er--oddities as they dry out, and cuddles 'em in corners."

"I suppose the truth is that we're over-stocked and too well fed to
swarm," said Melissa.

"That is the tru