“Yes.” Sir Poplar shoved Flora down. “Back in your place.”

As the sisters all knelt to the drones, the vibration surged deep into their bodies.

“Now lay your antennae at their feet,” continued the choral voice of the Sage. As every sister obeyed, the vibration went straight into their brains.

“Hah!” Sir Poplar’s voice was small and distant and the sound made Flora want to sting him.

“All rise.” The Sage priestesses came forward to stand in a line of beauty and power. They touched their wings together.

“Beloved daughters of One Mother,” Sister Sage addressed them. “Sisters of the hive, the turning season draws our prayer—”

“I’ve had it with that canting old hag.” Sir Poplar tried to get past Flora.

She broadened her thorax to block him. Anger curled inside her and she felt the urge to hit him. “You will stay.”

“Surely you are mad.” He shook his head. “You need the Kindness—”

“We will now observe the ancient ritual,” continued Sister Sage, “given by our Mother in the Time before Time. In the Great Obeisance to the Males, every sister shall play her part in the dance, and her body will know the steps. Accept, Obey, and Serve.”

“Accept, Obey, and Serve,” the sisters repeated, their voices low and strange.

“Enough of this drivel; out of my way.” Sir Poplar tried to shove past Flora, but his path was blocked by a close ring of sisters. “Are you all mad? Move!”

The vibration amplified into a low hum, coming from every sister. As Sir Poplar looked at their faces, his own changed. “Obey at once, before I report you all.”

“Report us . . .” More than one of the sisters said it, and some of them began to croon it, dancing seductively in front of him. “Report us . . . Your Maleness . . .”

“Stop that!” Sir Poplar’s voice was high and strained, and all around the Dance Hall other drones were similarly protesting.

The sisters’ hum grew louder.

“We praise Your Malenesses.” Sister Sage began the oblation, and each of the circles of sisters began moving around its drone in formal steps, pushing him back to the center when he tried to break free.

We give thanks for your power and grace.

And your glory on the wing—

The dancing sisters changed direction, singing louder over his protests.

We have lived to serve you.

Your time has come, your time has come.

Led by the choir of the Sage priestesses, the sister bees sang in overlapping rounds, their dancing circles changing direction, then flowing in crisscrossing lines moving through the Dance Hall, imprisoning the bewildered drones between them.

We give thanks for your bodies and your lives, sang the Sage choir, and the sisters danced faster, their words overlapping above the protests of the drones.

Your lusts and sloth,

And your idleness we now repay.

Louder and louder they sang to each drone as they passed him, and in flagrant contradiction of all etiquette, each sister defiantly let her kin-scent rise in his face.

We now repay—

The drones scrabbled around trying to break through the singing, chanting chains of sisters, panicking at the new smell rising up through the comb. As the driving rhythm of the dance carried their bodies forward, all the sisters inhaled the thrilling scent of their own long-held anger, now released into their brains.

Our labor, our hive.

The sisters danced around the drones, faster and faster in a great swirling pattern. Some hummed with a high, strange note; others let out little yelps of excitement.

Forgive us, Your Malenesses. Sister Sage’s voice led them.

Before we cast you out!

Many drones shouted it back at them, fear in their voices.

“Cast us out?”

“What are you talking about?”

“How dare you speak to Our Malenesses in that way—”

“Right, you filthy servant, move!” Sir Poplar shoved Flora hard. She did not flinch. He stared at her in astonishment. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes,” she said. With one blow she struck him off his feet. He looked up at her, stunned.

“She hit me!” he yelled as he struggled to rise. “Someone tell Holy Mother—”

“Why don’t you?” A meek little Cornflower kicked his feet out again. “Tell her how you blame her for everything! Isn’t that what you said?” At this, all the sisters began kicking and biting at the drones.

“You should have found your princess, shouldn’t you?”

“Then you would not be here—”

“All your bragging of sex and love—”

“There, I have it, brothers!” yelled Sir Hornbeam. “They are mad with jealousy! We must flood them with our scent to make them docile!” He pumped his glands so that his male pheromone poured into the air. Others did the same and some tried to start their engines to fan it harder.

Sisters made strange cries as they breathed it in and dropped their heads low, swinging them from side to side to breathe it more deeply. Others shrieked as they smelled it.

“Yes!” cried Sir Sycamore. “They need our dronewood, they crave it for themselves—” He grabbed a sister from Woodbine and held her close as if to mount her. “Shall I make you a princess, Sister?”

She screamed in rage as she twisted from his grip. “He mocks our virgin state!” She sliced at his face with her claws and he leaped back as she lunged at him—and then a command in the comb held every sister still.

Like every other sister in the packed Dance Hall, Flora paused and felt the tremors running up and down her antennae. She loved the feeling of venom swelling her sac, and her sting flexed strong and supple within her, longing to slide forth. Every sister in the hall slowly raised her claws, waiting for the signal in the comb.

The drones sought each other’s eyes and nodded in common purpose. They widened their thoraxes and raised their fur. Sir Poplar gave the signal.

“Now!”

As the drones ran roaring at the sisters to barge past and escape, the comb fired its own chemical trigger. Shrieking and whirling, the sisters joined themselves together in chains of dancers three strong and corralled all the males into a circle. Some threw back their heads and splayed their antennae, while others dipped theirs and swung them from side to side with guttural sounds.

Isolated in their spinning rings of sisters, still shouting in protest, the drones could not hide the scent of their fear. The smell made Flora’s abdomen contract hard with pleasure, and at the thrill of her sisters’ flaring war glands she screamed with excitement.

Blessings on our brothers, called out the choir of Sage as the bees danced.

Blessings on their flesh—

“Sisters!” shouted a drone into the dense, swirling motion of the dance. “We beg you, cease your madness!”

Blessings on Their Malenesses, cried the Sage priestess.

At the moment of their death—

The priestess fell upon the nearest drone with her jaws, and before he could scream his kin-scent burst bright and fatal on the heated air. The Dance Hall erupted into a frenzy of motion as the drones fought to escape and the sisters dragged them back.

Sir Poplar roared and started his engine as his body was lifted up in the air by teeming sisters, but they broke his wings from his back and threw him down.

“You insult Holy Mother—”

“Squander our food—”

“Pretend you would mate us as if we were queens—how dare you!”

It was the sister from Woodbine whom he had so insulted. She stood where he could see her face. “Only the Queen may breed!” She ripped his abdomen open down to his genitals, then tore out his penis and ate it. Sisters screamed in excitement as his blood splashed on their faces.

“Only the Queen may breed!” Flora screamed it again and again with all her strength, as if to purge herself of her guilt and shame, and as the drones screamed and tried to fly above the crazed females she too leaped to catch them and drag them back down into the savage mass.