Chainsaw Hobbit
2011-04-09, 11:45 AM
As a writing exercise, I wrote a scientifically accurate short story abut bees. Please tell me what you think.
the siege: a tale of bees
A scientifically accurate story in which a beehive struggles to survive in the face of tremendous adversity
Bees are not individual beings, but are all essential pieces of a more complicated life-form. No bee is complete on its own, but is instead a working part of sentient mind. A beehive is a mind, a body, and a soul. It holds complex memories within it's honeycombs, with each bee acting as a synapse and each hexagonal container acting as a brain cell. Thoughts, ideas, and even opinions pass through this bizarre but miraculously working mind; so when a bee dies, the whole hive is shaken.
* * * * *
The hive sensed a presence. This presence – this being – was not a collective mind like the hive, but its own individual creature with individual desires and motivations. It wasn't a nice presence either. It had a mind full of aggression and madness and petty spite. It was a creature that would hurt other creatures because it felt like it, or because they had gotten too close. The hive could put a name to a presence like that, and it was wasp.
Wasp is an ugly word. A word full of hatred and subtle malice. A word that exactly suits the creature it represents. The wasp landed on the hive and briefly recoiled; she had smelled honey. She hated the smell of honey which to her was vile and sickly sweet. She was used to the smell of gore and rotting mammal which were her primary food sources (not that she was above resorting to cannibalism). Greedy, aggressive, and mad with blood lust; the creature scanned the outer aria of the hive, searching for a weak spot to dig into. She encountered a few of the guarding solder bees, but they were dispatched with minimal effort.
The whole hive was reeling in panic. Their solders could probably take on a single wasp, but it would be no easy task and the hive would be badly damaged before it was accomplished. Unless they could figure out a way to drive off the imposter quickly, it would take several generations for the hive to fully recover. A waft of scented vapour from the all-knowing queen alerted the solder bees to attack the wasp and the others to brace themselves and hide.
The wasp eventually found a thin patch in the flaky outer wax that sealed the hive from the elements. She began to dig and soon she had made a hole big enough to slip through. Wasps – although not bigger than most bees – are quite strong for their size and are built to kill. Another advantage that they happen to enjoy is that unlike bees, they can sting multiple times. The effects of their stings aren't quite as adverse, but are still more than enough to bring down any bee.
The wasp found itself surrounded by the slow but powerful guard bees that patrol the inside of the hive. She killed all of them with ease, but they had kept her busy long enough for a large group of solders to flood into the room and crawl into the hole she had made in the ceiling. Once they were upon her she immediately began to tear them apart, but eventually fatigue settled in and she was overtaken. The shaken hive, now relieved, began the slow task of recovery.
* * * * *
The hive of a wasp, unlike that of a bee, is not a mind but simply a habitat. There will be several wasps inside (including a bloated and ruthless queen), but each wasp is its own creature and the death of any wasp save the queen is of no great importance to the hive. In late autumn, the wasp queen will take a few of her most trusted guards and seal the rest of her subjects out of the hive to freeze and starve, and will then repopulate in the spring. A wisp of death-stench wafted through the nearby wasp hive. Whenever a wasp dies, all the wasps within a surprising radius quickly gather with the hope of gorging on the fallen wasp or each other.
The bee hive was worried. Somehow it had half-known that it was about to be under hopeless siege by a swarm of sadistic monsters. Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps it was obscure memories imbedded deep in the deepest structure of the hive, or perhaps the hive-mind had very limited extra-sensory perception. Whatever it was, it knew it was doomed; but it wouldn't go down without one hell of a fight.
The queen instructed all the remaining solder bees to keep constant guard on the exterior of the hive and all the workers to barricade themselves in the sealed chambers where the larva was kept. The hive briefly considered fleeing, but the structure was its body and soul and sacrificing the larva was unthinkable.
The wasps came one-by-one like droning harbingers of carnage and death. The first few circled slowly and casually, stinging solders that attempted to attack them with relish and watching them fall like limp stones into the river below. Soon – when they began to show up in greater numbers – they gave up attacking slowly and barrelled into the hive like like horrible spinning blades, tearing apart solder bees like a child mindlessly rips paper into grimy little shreds. Occasionally at least half a dozen of the disoriented solders would regroup and attack a wasp at once, killing it; but soon this tactic became almost impossible when most of the solders had been slain.
Knowing that they had nearly won, the wasps began to dig into cracks in the have to get at the delicious larva and the queen. One of them was immediately attacked by more than a dozen desperate workers, but they were torn asunder like gore-drenched confetti.
The queen frantically ordered the surviving solders and workers to regroup for one last stand. They gathered in the main larva chamber where the queen was kept and watched the walls vigilantly, their wings quivering and their entente moving in methodical patterns. When the first wasp burst through the wall a swarm of bees attacked it at once and killed it, but they had left the way open at the other side of the room where two more wasps appeared and rushed the queen. A worker bee threw itself in front of one of them, taking the sting and dieing with a buzzing hiss, but the other wasp impaled the queen right through her bloated abdomen. The queen let out a buzzing scream as the wasp removed its stinger and stung her again. It was too late to save her, since the poison had already crippled her beyond recovery. Soon the rest of the wasps were in the chamber and had killed all but a few, but one terrified worker had slipped through one of the tunnels and out of the hive just as the wasps began to devour the larva. The worker flew to where the hive was attached to the tree branch and chewed until it fell into the river below. Taking the wasps, the larva, and the dying queen with it.
the siege: a tale of bees
A scientifically accurate story in which a beehive struggles to survive in the face of tremendous adversity
Bees are not individual beings, but are all essential pieces of a more complicated life-form. No bee is complete on its own, but is instead a working part of sentient mind. A beehive is a mind, a body, and a soul. It holds complex memories within it's honeycombs, with each bee acting as a synapse and each hexagonal container acting as a brain cell. Thoughts, ideas, and even opinions pass through this bizarre but miraculously working mind; so when a bee dies, the whole hive is shaken.
* * * * *
The hive sensed a presence. This presence – this being – was not a collective mind like the hive, but its own individual creature with individual desires and motivations. It wasn't a nice presence either. It had a mind full of aggression and madness and petty spite. It was a creature that would hurt other creatures because it felt like it, or because they had gotten too close. The hive could put a name to a presence like that, and it was wasp.
Wasp is an ugly word. A word full of hatred and subtle malice. A word that exactly suits the creature it represents. The wasp landed on the hive and briefly recoiled; she had smelled honey. She hated the smell of honey which to her was vile and sickly sweet. She was used to the smell of gore and rotting mammal which were her primary food sources (not that she was above resorting to cannibalism). Greedy, aggressive, and mad with blood lust; the creature scanned the outer aria of the hive, searching for a weak spot to dig into. She encountered a few of the guarding solder bees, but they were dispatched with minimal effort.
The whole hive was reeling in panic. Their solders could probably take on a single wasp, but it would be no easy task and the hive would be badly damaged before it was accomplished. Unless they could figure out a way to drive off the imposter quickly, it would take several generations for the hive to fully recover. A waft of scented vapour from the all-knowing queen alerted the solder bees to attack the wasp and the others to brace themselves and hide.
The wasp eventually found a thin patch in the flaky outer wax that sealed the hive from the elements. She began to dig and soon she had made a hole big enough to slip through. Wasps – although not bigger than most bees – are quite strong for their size and are built to kill. Another advantage that they happen to enjoy is that unlike bees, they can sting multiple times. The effects of their stings aren't quite as adverse, but are still more than enough to bring down any bee.
The wasp found itself surrounded by the slow but powerful guard bees that patrol the inside of the hive. She killed all of them with ease, but they had kept her busy long enough for a large group of solders to flood into the room and crawl into the hole she had made in the ceiling. Once they were upon her she immediately began to tear them apart, but eventually fatigue settled in and she was overtaken. The shaken hive, now relieved, began the slow task of recovery.
* * * * *
The hive of a wasp, unlike that of a bee, is not a mind but simply a habitat. There will be several wasps inside (including a bloated and ruthless queen), but each wasp is its own creature and the death of any wasp save the queen is of no great importance to the hive. In late autumn, the wasp queen will take a few of her most trusted guards and seal the rest of her subjects out of the hive to freeze and starve, and will then repopulate in the spring. A wisp of death-stench wafted through the nearby wasp hive. Whenever a wasp dies, all the wasps within a surprising radius quickly gather with the hope of gorging on the fallen wasp or each other.
The bee hive was worried. Somehow it had half-known that it was about to be under hopeless siege by a swarm of sadistic monsters. Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps it was obscure memories imbedded deep in the deepest structure of the hive, or perhaps the hive-mind had very limited extra-sensory perception. Whatever it was, it knew it was doomed; but it wouldn't go down without one hell of a fight.
The queen instructed all the remaining solder bees to keep constant guard on the exterior of the hive and all the workers to barricade themselves in the sealed chambers where the larva was kept. The hive briefly considered fleeing, but the structure was its body and soul and sacrificing the larva was unthinkable.
The wasps came one-by-one like droning harbingers of carnage and death. The first few circled slowly and casually, stinging solders that attempted to attack them with relish and watching them fall like limp stones into the river below. Soon – when they began to show up in greater numbers – they gave up attacking slowly and barrelled into the hive like like horrible spinning blades, tearing apart solder bees like a child mindlessly rips paper into grimy little shreds. Occasionally at least half a dozen of the disoriented solders would regroup and attack a wasp at once, killing it; but soon this tactic became almost impossible when most of the solders had been slain.
Knowing that they had nearly won, the wasps began to dig into cracks in the have to get at the delicious larva and the queen. One of them was immediately attacked by more than a dozen desperate workers, but they were torn asunder like gore-drenched confetti.
The queen frantically ordered the surviving solders and workers to regroup for one last stand. They gathered in the main larva chamber where the queen was kept and watched the walls vigilantly, their wings quivering and their entente moving in methodical patterns. When the first wasp burst through the wall a swarm of bees attacked it at once and killed it, but they had left the way open at the other side of the room where two more wasps appeared and rushed the queen. A worker bee threw itself in front of one of them, taking the sting and dieing with a buzzing hiss, but the other wasp impaled the queen right through her bloated abdomen. The queen let out a buzzing scream as the wasp removed its stinger and stung her again. It was too late to save her, since the poison had already crippled her beyond recovery. Soon the rest of the wasps were in the chamber and had killed all but a few, but one terrified worker had slipped through one of the tunnels and out of the hive just as the wasps began to devour the larva. The worker flew to where the hive was attached to the tree branch and chewed until it fell into the river below. Taking the wasps, the larva, and the dying queen with it.