The Farmboy and the Bee

The days were growing shorter and colder. Jimmy had already been chopping wood behind the barn for an hour and his hands were raw from swinging the heavy wood axe. 

He paused for a moment and took his cap off to wipe his sweat away and let his muscles relax. He leaned against the handle and looked at the pile he had already chopped, then at the mountain he still had to go through. Jimmy shuddered at the thought of his father's wrath if he were caught slacking off, or worst yet if he didn't get through the rest of the pile before sundown. The young man sighed and bent down to place a new log on the chopping block and continue on with his chore.

He raised the axe high and was about to bring it own when he heard a buzzing in his ear. Jimmy almost threw the axe as he backed away from the noise, swiping at his head and almost striking himself with the wooden handle.

Jimmy was so caught up in his panic that he forgot to watch his step and fell into the pile of freshly chopped wood. The buzzing stopped as he fell down, and instead a small voice started talking to him in his ear.

"Your majesty. I'm sorry for the delay. What are your orders?"

Jimmy froze. He looked to his left and right, and saw no one there to speak to him. "I must have hit my head," he told himself. He ran his hand through his hair but there was no blood there, only sweat. "Who's there?"

"Is something wrong, your majesty? You don't seem well."

Jimmy looked to his left shoulder and saw a bee on him, looking directly at him. "Get away from me," Jimmy managed to whisper, "I'm allergic to bees."

"Allergic? Your majesty has a good sense of humor! How can you be allergic to one of your own?" laughed the bee.

"One of… my own?" asked Jimmy. He remembered being told he had been stung once when he was very young and almost dying from it. His parents had spent nearly all their savings for him and had been keeping him as far away from bees as they could ever since. They didn't even allow him to have any honey, from fear he would fall ill again.

The bee tilted its head, "Your majesty? Are you well? And why do you look this way? Are you disguising yourself to pass through the humans unknown?"

Jimmy became aware he was still lying in a pile of wood when he shifted and felt a corner push against his back. He sat up and took the bee in his hand so he could peak to it face to face. "What do you mean by this? Who are you? Who am… I?"

"I am Beatrice, your highness, and you are our prince! Do you not recall?" answered the bee.

"I… don't, sorry," answered Jimmy. "How could I be anything more than a simple farmer?"

Beatrice rubbed her forelimbs together for a moment, "You have to come with me then, your majesty. I'm certain the queen-mother will be able to remove the affliction clouding your memory."

"Queen-mother? Who is that and where are you meaning to take me?" asked Jimmy.

Beatrice started walking in Jimmy's hand, making a figure eight at first, then zig-zagging, and finally making a wide half circle before coming to a stop. "The queen-mother is the queen-mother of course! She is your mother, mine, and that of all our hive! She is the wisest of us all!"

JImmy didn't understand how, but he felt as though he understood where he was meant to go from the directions given to him. He shook the thought from his head. "Can you guide me there then? I'm curious to meet this queen-mother."

"Of course, your highness!" Beatrice's wings began buzzing and she took off into the woods.

"Hey! Wait for me!" screamed Jimmy after her.

He followed the buzzing for a few minutes, but Beatrice didn't wait for him. He lost all trace of her, yet he remembered the path she had described in his hand, and after a half hour of walking, he came to a huge tree. 

The tree could be heard from all the buzzing before it could be seen. In truth, it was more a beehive than it was a tree. The buzzing stopped as soon as he came into view of the bees' home.

"Hello? Beatrice? Are you there?" asked Jimmy as he stepped carefully up to the beehive.

"Your majesty! You've come! I feared you had changed your mind!" answered Beatrice from a branch above him.

"You've done well to bring him here," answered a regal voice from the top of the tree. A loud buzzing filled the air as the leaves shook from a powerful and sudden gust. A moment later, a humanoid bee landed in front of Jimmy. "You've finally returned to us, but I was told you recollect naught from us. Is that true?"

"I… no," answered Jimmy as he forced himself to answer through the knot in his throat.

"The thieves are more devious than I gave them credit for, then," answered the queen-mother. "Only one thing can remedy their evil then. Come, have a taste of our honey. Let it remove the veil of lies that was laid upon you," she gestured to the core of the hive, where sticky, golden honey was waiting for him.

Jimmy walked up to it slowly, uncertain if he should listen. His every instinct told him to do as he was told, but his parents' voices rang through his mind with their warnings. He dipped his hand in the golden treasure, just as voices were heard from the forest where he had come from.

"Jimmy! Stop!" His father erupted in the clearing with his mother a step behind. "Don't do this! They're lying to you!"

"The thieves return," screeched the queen-mother.

"How do you know the bees? Did you… did you steal me from them?" asked Jimmy.

The parents' faces blanched in the trees' shade. They didn't answer, but their faces told a story of greed and jealousy as loudly as any tale they could have spun.

Jimmy's eyes narrowed and he tasted of the honey. As soon as it crossed his lips, memories came rushing back, of his hive, his people, who he had forgotten about until this moment. His body began to change at the same time, growing more hair, changing his limbs into those of a bee like the queen-mother's, until he no longer looked like the young man he had been mere moments before.

His human parents, no, his abductors, fell to their knees and wept for mercy.

Jimmy looked at them through his renewed eyes, his own multi-faceted eyes, for the first time. He had felt naught but contempt towards them before, and now all pity for them had left him.

"Sting them."