gles. Some bees
tried the new plan for a while, and found it cost eight times more
wax than the old six sided specification; and, as they never allowed a
cluster to hang up and make wax in peace, real wax was scarce. However,
they eked out their task with varnish stolen from new coffins at
funerals, and it made them rather sick. Then they took to cadging round
sugar-factories and breweries, because it was easiest to get their
material from those places, and the mixture of glucose and beer
naturally fermented in store and blew the store-cells out of shape,
besides smelling abominably. Some of the sound bees warned them that
ill-gotten gains never prosper, but the Oddities at once surrounded them
and balled them to death. That was a punishment they were almost as
fond of as they were of eating, and they expected the sound bees to
feed them. Curiously enough the age-old instinct of loyalty and devotion
towards the Hive made the sound bees do this, though their reason told
them they ought to slip away and unite with some other healthy stock in
the apiary.

"What, about seven and three-quarter minutes' work now?" said Melissa
one day as she came in. "I've been at it for five hours, and I've only
half a load."

"Oh, the Hive subsists on the Hival Honey which the Hive produces," said
a blind Oddity squatting in a store-cell.

"But honey is gathered from flowers outside two miles away sometimes,"
cried Melissa.

"Pardon me," said the blind thing, sucking hard. "But this is the Hive,
is it not?"

"It was. Worse luck, it is."

"And the Hival Honey is here, is it not?" It opened a fresh store-cell
to prove it.

"Ye-es, but it won't be long at this rate," said Melissa.

"The rates have nothing to do with it. This Hive produces the Hival
Honey. You people never seem to grasp the economic simplicity that
underlies all life."

"Oh, me!" said poor Melissa, "haven't you ever been beyond the Gate?"

"Certainly not. A fool's eyes are in the ends of the earth. Mine are in
my head." It gorged till it bloated.

Melissa took refuge in her poorly paid field-work and told Sacharissa
the story.

"Hut!" said that wise bee, fretting with an old maid of a thistle. "Tell
us something new. The Hive's full of such as him--it, I mean."

"What's the end to be? All the honey going out and none coming in.
Things can't last this way!" said Melissa.

"Who cares?" said Sacharissa. "I know now how drones feel the day before
they're killed.