Elder Bee said to the Child,
"All this is quite perplexing.
No longer can I taste the Wild.
It is, you know, quite vexing.
Man changed our Flowers to fit his need,
without a thought to Us.
And now the Pollen holds no Power,
and We cannot adjust.
The Council of Elder Bees met near the Throne of the Queen-mother --
for grave circumstances were sweeping over the Queendoms everywhere:
mutant beserkers were killing, raping, destroying
everything in their path from the Southern Realms --
and in the North, poisons were blighting crops, infecting babies,
and negatively affecting life in general...
the People were concerned
(normally, bees were not subject to emotional outbursts,
as if they had all evolved from a Vulcan Garden of Spock)
but the People were demanding ACTION
any action, to cushion the prophetic unfolding
of their Ninth World.