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manner. She had them working in a vacant area of the Drones’ Arrival Hall, cleaning out recently used incubation chambers in preparation for repair with consecrated wax.
    Each bee had her own set of chambers to work on. Though none of them could speak, they grunted and scraped away with the same rhythm, apparently enjoying their work. Some scrutinized their neighbors’ labor, mutely pointing out the smallest particle of remaining dirt, while others checked that the soiled wax was efficiently compacted for removal. There were no guiding foot-tracks between the drone chambers, so to block painful confusion Flora clenched down with her scarred antennae to focus on the smallest possible area. It made her obsessive, but her work was immaculate, and Sister Bindweed had to shout and throw a piece of wax at her when it was time for Devotion.
    From their place in the Drones’ Arrival Hall, all the sanitation workers could hear the massed choirs of the hive singing through the carved walls. As the vocal vibrations sent the fragrance of the Queen’s Love shimmering through the membrane of the honeycomb and deep into their bodies, some of the floras made incoherent sounds of happiness, while others made rhythmic movements as if trying to dance. Flora was one of the many who stood transfixed by the blissful sense of being loved—until the divine surge began to ebb away.
    A strange sensation rose inside her, strong as hunger but not for food or water. It was as if her abdomen dragged heavy behind her, and her rigid, twisted tongue swelled in her mouth. As her detail returned to work, the sensations grew more insistent. Trying to rid herself of them, Flora shook herself from side to side.
    “Stop that, you stupid creature!” Sister Bindweed waved the thin rod of propolis resin that she used to poke the sanitation workers without incurring dirty contact. “Get into that cell and clean it, unless you want me to send you for the Kindness.”
    Obediently, Flora climbed into the next vacated drone cell. The air was fetid, the walls and floor crusted with fecal waste. Even through Flora’s deadened senses, her brain thundered with the chemical onslaught from the waste of this drone. As the foul smell destroyed the last fragrant vestige of the Queen’s Love, a sudden rage rose up inside Flora. She attacked the wall with her jaws, furious at the sexual smell of the filth. The tightness in her mouth ignited in two points of pain on either side of her face, but she worked on in a frenzy, tearing out soiled chunks of wax and hurling them into the corridor. Then all sound and vision cut out and she was left in a chaos of odors.
    Terror-stricken, Flora threw herself out of the drone’s chamber and onto the ground. Somewhere nearby the thinnest filament of the Queen’s Love lingered on the ground where it had come through the comb, and she threw her body down against it, breathing it in to counter the flashing black pain in her head.
    “717! You are behaving like a demented bluebottle—stop that!”
    Sister Bindweed tried to kick Flora back to her feet, but with her massive strength Flora clung to the wax until she drew the last molecules of the Queen’s Love into her body. Sister Bindweed’s puny kicks did not hurt, because something far more powerful was taking place in her mind and body.
    Her tongue, so long hard and twisted, was warming and softening, and the disgusting taste of the drone waste was fading. Strength was coursing through her body, and her antennae throbbed as their inner channels opened up, restoring her vision and hearing. Most amazing of all was her sense of smell. She could discern all the different waxes used to make the floor tiles on which she lay, and the propolis inlay of the drone cells, and the warm, dirty smell of the sanitation workers’ bodies toiling around her—
    “Enough!” Too angry to use her propolis rod, Sister Bindweed grabbed Flora by the edge of a wing and started pulling her toward the doors.