Two Children and a Queen Bee

By Niggy Binkles

“Wow! What beautiful weather! Such delightful sunshine!” squealed Dolcy as he peeped out of the window, while Chinku, his little sister, was busy playing games with Chit-Chat Tom, a ‘virtual' cat, on their shared laptop.

Chinku leapt out of the chair and joined her brother at the window. “Oh my!” she exclaimed. “The sun looks like a giant blob of butter! Such a relief after many days of rain! Let’s go to Whispering Willows Apartments for a walk. I can buy some cake there, too. It’s been ages since I last had some of that!”

So, the children set off for Whispering Willows Apartments, which was a large residential complex located near their home. They often went there for a stroll, because it had ample space to walk around, a huge lawn and big benches to sit on in the sunshine.

Almost as soon as they reached the apartment complex the children spotted a large number of honey bees lying on the ground. Most of them were dead, but some were still fluttering their wings, pathetically writhing in pain. “Oh how horrible!”, said Chinku aghast.

“Maybe they’ve removed a beehive somewhere here,” she said sadly.

The two children were very upset. In a while, they reached the grocery store located inside the apartment complex. They went in to buy the cake that Chinku wanted, and there they asked a helper about the bees. He told them that a beehive had been removed that morning from a tree located inside the complex as some people didn’t like it being there.

The children were very sad. “How hard the bees work to make their home and these grown-ups destroy it so fast,” said Chinku to Dolcy as they stepped out of the shop.

Just then, the children heard a buzzing sound around them. And, lo and behold, a big, pretty honey bee flew down and sat on Dolcy’s shoulder! Now, Dolcy was a brave kid and wasn’t afraid of honey bees, so he didn’t get scared when this happened. In fact, both of the children loved animals and birds, and Nature in general.

“Hello children, I’m Bizzy Buzz, the queen bee who used to reside in the hive that some human folks destroyed earlier today. I’m really sad as all my friends who lived together with me in our common home there were chased away. Some flew away, here and there, while some went back to God.”

“Yes, we noticed that,” said the children in unison.

Bizzy Buzz continued: “You should know, children, that we honey bees don’t harm humans unless they hurt us. We just hop from flower to flower and make honey and work very hard to build our home-hives, and after a while, we leave them and fly away to a new destination. Humans grab and consume the honey we make with our hard labour and yet they hurt us by spraying chemicals on us or destroying our homes.” A stream of tears began flowing down Bizzy Buzz’s cheeks as she spoke.

“Queen, dear, I wish we could help you, but I don’t know how we can,” said Dolcy.

“Have a bite of cake, Bizzy Buzz,” offered Chinku. “It’s fresh—we just bought it from the store.”

“That’s so sweet of you, child, but we bees don’t eat cake. All we have is flower juice,” Bizzy Buzz explained.

The children stayed silent for a while, wondering what they could do to help their new friend. Then, all of a sudden, Chinku came up with an idea. “Let’s record Bizzy Buzz’s story in her words on Mumma’s phone and make a video out of it and send it to as many people as we can. That way, they’ll come to know how badly she and her fellow bees have been made to suffer, and so, maybe in future she and her kind won’t have to go through the same again.”

“Wow! That’s a splendid idea!” said Dolcy.

The children went back to their home, explained their plan to their mother, and, borrowing her phone, came back to the apartment complex, where Bizzy Buzz was waiting for them. Then, they asked her to repeat her story while they recorded it on the camera on their mother’s phone.

In just a while, a short video, containing the story of the bees who earlier that day had lost their home, and many of them their very lives, was ready. Then, with their mother’s help, the children had the video sent to many people, in their city and beyond. Soon, many people had seen it and were visibly moved. They were determined that they would never let bees and other animals who lived about them to be harmed.

Now, see what a big thing happened through this one little act of kindness!