s with an infected hive in the apiary, two or
three seasons ago; and, of course, from her point of view the affair was
as important as the Day of Judgment.

"And then?" asked horrified Sacharissa.

"Then, I have heard that a little light will burn in a great darkness,
and perhaps the world will begin again. Myself, I think not."

"Tut! Tut!" the Wax-moth cried. "You good, fat people always prophesy
ruin if things don't go exactly your way. But I grant you there will be
changes."

There were. When her eggs hatched, the wax was riddled with little
tunnels, coated with the dirty clothes of the caterpillars. Flannelly
lines ran through the honey-stores, the pollen-larders, the foundations,
and, worst of all, through the babies in their cradles, till the Sweeper
Guards spent half their time tossing out useless little corpses. The
lines ended in a maze of sticky webbing on the face of the comb. The
caterpillars could not stop spinning as they walked, and as they walked
everywhere, they smarmed and garmed everything. Even where it did not
hamper the bees' feet, the stale, sour smell of the stuff put them off
their work; though some of the bees who had taken to egg laying said it
encouraged them to be mothers and maintain a vital interest in life.

When the caterpillars became moths, they made friends with the
ever-increasing Oddities--albinoes, mixed-leggers, single-eyed
composites, faceless drones, halfqueens and laying sisters; and
the ever-dwindling band of the old stock worked themselves bald and
fray-winged to feed their queer charges. Most of the Oddities would not,
and many, on account of their malformations, could not, go through
a day's field-work; but the Wax-moths, who were always busy on the
brood-comb, found pleasant home occupations for them. One albino, for
instance, divided the number of pounds of honey in stock by the number
of bees in the Hive, and proved that if every bee only gathered honey
for seven and three quarter minutes a day, she would have the rest of
the time to herself, and could accompany the drones on their mating
flights. The drones were not at all pleased.

Another, an eyeless drone with no feelers, said that all brood-cells
should be perfect circles, so as not to interfere with the grub or the
workers. He proved that the old six-sided cell was solely due to the
workers building against each other on opposite sides of the wall, and
that if there were no interference, there would be no an