Feeling responsible for the growing hunger in the hive, she stretched her endurance further, scouring the fields and town gardens for the smallest sip of astringent nectar. She found a patch of waste ground tumbled with garbage, lent grace by a bank of purple and yellow asters. Their petals spread wide to offer their coarse, ready pollen, and she fell upon them. By nightfall every forager with wit to find it and strength to return had added aster pollen to the coffers of the Treasury and the joy of the table—but by morning the sanitation workers were using the freight area overflow for the newly dead, for the morgue was full and high winds had closed the landing board.

Foragers crowded the corridor to peer out at the racing gray sky and hear the orchard creak from its roots. When it was Flora’s turn, she stuck all six hooks into the wax of the corridor and leaned out into the gale. Leaves whirled in the air and the branches rattled. To her fierce satisfaction, the spiders’ webs had gone.

Later that day the Sage, who had been conspicuous by their absence, reappeared in the hive en masse, walking in groups of six. Deep in prayer and chanting an unknown mantra, they were more beautiful than Flora had ever seen them, and she and many other bees stopped to watch their passage through the lobbies. Their long, elegant wings were unlatched so that their strong kin-scent flowed behind them, and Flora’s antennae twitched as she felt some hidden code within it. The priestesses did not speak, but when they had passed, every sister looked down at her feet in surprise. The comb had stopped transmitting.

Completely unnerved, sisters collected around the big central mosaics in each lobby. They tapped their feet on all the codes and hushed each other while they tried to detect with their antennae the strange change in the air, but they could see no priestesses to ask and the mystery frightened them.

The evening was more disconcerting than the day, for the priestesses appeared in the canteens to serve their meal. This was so unprecedented that the sisters were speechless, forgot their kin places, and sat wherever they could best stare at the extraordinary sight. The Sage had turned the edges of their wing mantles to show their fine gold stripe, their cuticles were polished to a bronze luster, and their fur stood soft and scented. Below their eyes each had made a subtle mark of gold so that as they turned their faces on each sister they served, the effect was one of almost queenly radiance.

Flora thought she was dreaming as a priestess placed a golden cup of honey before her. Every sister at the table looked up in amazement as the same was done for her, for never in their lives had they eaten like this. Each was scared to start eating in case she was mistaken, for even in the Drones’ Hall this luxury would have been excessive. But the priestesses were genial and encouraged the sisters to begin.

A thousand flowers’ sweetness burst upon the bees’ tongues, and great euphoria filled the air as they fed and felt their strength return. The honey made them sing with boldness and joy: The Sage were good, the priestesses cared for them and would never let them starve. The wind might blow and the frost might bite, but Holy Mother kept them safe and the Sage were her beloved envoys!

As the bees licked the last honey from their cups and wiped them clean with the last crumbs of pollen cakes, the Sage moved among them, chanting softly in words unknown until the Hive Mind filled the mind of each sister.

We share the Last Feast, before the Cluster.

Winter comes, and we join in the Cluster.

The priestesses began to hum the Holy Chord and signaled all rise. The sisters gathered their voices as one, feeling the delicious heaviness of honey and pollen in their bodies give new timbre to the sound. Then the priestesses led them out and the corridors filled with honey-scented bees, singing in a great procession. Flora expected that they would go down to the Dance Hall for Devotion, but instead, the Sage led them up to the Treasury.

The bees gasped as they went in. Two great high walls showed empty vaults, but before they could feel any fear at the gaping lack of honey, they were smitten by the heavenly scent of the Queen. All the chalices of the Fanning Hall had been cleared away, and Her Majesty stood in the center of the atrium with her ladies, her scent billowing strong and pure. Her smile was so beautiful that each bee knew her Holy Mother saw her and loved her, and they hummed softly in well-being.

“Blessings on you, my daughters,” said the Queen. “May we meet again.”

“We will now form the Cluster.” The Sage priestesses spoke with one voice, and began to guide the bees into formation.

Starting with the highest kin groups, the bees encircled the royal party, hooking themselves together in elegant tessellation, kin after kin, reaching down and pulling each other up, supporting each other as they climbed around the mass that hid the Queen from sight at the center, careful always to leave the correct space for air.

Kin after kin, they climbed and clung, climbed and clung, until every bee had her place and the Cluster filled the Treasury to the very top, where it was anchored to the comb by the strong kin of Thistle and where open honey cells mingled their perfume with the Queen’s scent. The exquisite fragrance reached down even to the sanitation workers who formed the lowest outer layer of the Cluster, so that even the lowest of the low were held by the Queen’s love and reassurance.

As a forager Flora had the right to go in deeper, but she chose to stay with her kin-sisters, calming them and making sure they were correctly hooked together before she joined them. Then from the center of the Cluster, the Hive Mind spoke:

Accept, Obey, and Serve.

“Accept, Obey, and Serve,” responded every bee, and as each one spoke, her nervous system joined with that of her sisters, and she released her antennae. Flora spoke the words too, but she pressed her antennae seal tight. Nine thousand bees slowed their breathing, and their individual kin-scents quieted as they breathed as one, drawing in the combined bouquet of the Queen, the Sage, and the honey.

Without the sisters’ bodies in constant motion, the hive cooled rapidly. The sanitation workers on the outer edge felt faint warmth emanating from the central mass, but their wings and backs remained cold as they synchronized their breathing and set their antennae to rest position. Flora listened as they all sank into sleep.

Still wide awake, she inhaled the Queen’s Love again, feeling its delivery slowing as Holy Mother herself slept—but her own metabolism would not attune. Instead, she heard the distant rattle of the orchard branches and the wind sweeping the sky. Under the cold press of night, a lichen of frost bloomed on the wooden hive. Deep inside, on the rim of the dark ball of bees, Flora heard its structure creak, and the quiet breathing of her sisters. She refocused her attention on the Queen’s slow, pulsing scent.

Flora listened for any other sisters who might still be awake. Her mouth was dry and the base of her tongue felt tight. She wanted a shining drop of water from the cool green groove of a leaf. She wanted the soft velvet slide of petals on her body, not the cold clutch of her sisters’ claws. She could not sleep and she could not fly and her wings were locked cold down her back. If she completely relaxed her antennae she might be able to sleep, but to do that might release dreams of her egg. Flora jerked her legs at the thought of it and sanitation workers on both sides mumbled and moaned in their sleep.

Was it so cold outside she would die? That might be better than this—she would die of boredom and frustration if she failed to sleep. Flora now desperately wanted to call out to the other foragers—surely they would be struggling as well, for foragers only rested for short periods, and already the Cluster felt like an eternity.