Bronwyn the Bee

Whenever the alarm goes off in the cherry orchard beehive, all the bees spring into action. They fly out of the hive, wash their faces and legs in the morning dew, and before you know it, they are all back in their places and ready to start the day’s work. All except one, that is – scout bee Bronwyn.

Although Bronwyn had passed all five of the tests that a bee must pass to become a scout, she had only just scraped through.

She had started out as a cleaner bee. But you definitely couldn’t have called her cells tidy. Once she left a sock lying around, another time she forgot to sweep up the pollen crumbs.

Then she became a feeder. But the baby bees she was looking after screamed so loudly that they could be heard from the next door orchard.

When she became a nurse bee, her bee larvae were all skin and bone.

She wasn’t any good as a builder, either: her combs always turned out crooked and badly capped, so the honey leaked out of them.

After that, she became a hive guard. But uninvited guests often appeared in the hive when she was on duty, because Bronwyn had fallen asleep.

Despite all this, Bronwyn had become a scout – but she was the laziest scout in the entire hive. Do you think anyone noticed? There are as many bees in a hive as poppy seeds in a poppy head. So to begin with, Bronwyn got by just pretending to work. Although she always flew out of the hive later than the other bees, she had an excuse ready for the bee guard every time. And once she was outside she would just crawl into a flower, drink…