The Land of Orange

Another cool crisp morning, the sun was just beginning to peek over the trees, calm and serene. There was no time to enjoy this tranquility, not for Burton, he is off to work already. Bumblebees aren’t very efficient at storing honey you see, so Burton spends all day going from plant to flower to hive to bring back the nectar for the rest of the bees. It’s hard work and takes all day but he enjoys his work and is able to provide for his hive.

The real reward comes at the end of the day when the work is done, Burton goes to his secret place, where the flowers are stunning and the nectar is the sweetest.

It was a typical day for Burton, with lots of flying lots of depositing nectar at the hive. Finally, he was done working for the day, time to enjoy himself. He was exhausted and his wings were beginning to hurt from all the flying, but he was determined to reach the land of orange. Racing along through the woods towards the clearing, there was a tree branch that had fallen. After flying up to avoid this obstacle he looked down and there it was, the patch of orange marigolds.

Marigolds have always been Burton’s favorite flowers, and the orange ones are particularly tasty.

As he made his descent he surveyed the flowers trying to identify that best-looking one. That is when he noticed a butterfly helping itself to one of the marigolds, Burton became enraged. The nerve of that butterfly to feast upon his flowers. This type of disrespect almost warrants a stinging, however, Burton was so pleased by the sight and smell of his favorite marigolds he decided to allow the butterfly to live, there were enough flowers for them to share.

At last, Burton began to eat. He was so hungry and tired the nectar tasted even better than normal. Burton was happy.

His happiness disappeared one second later, after seeing Nomada fly by. This was bad, very bad.

Nomada the cuckoo bee, or Nomada as she is known around the hive, is a cuckoo bee, a type of parasite. These parasites reproduce by laying their eggs in a beehive, having the bees raise the eggs until they hatch. At which point the baby cuckoo bees destroy the hive and kill all the bees. Luckily Burton’s hive had learned from the past and had developed a defense system for this exact situation. The only issue is it takes the whole hive working together for their plan to work, so Burton had to get back to the hive as fast as he could.

The marigold was completely gone from his thoughts, as was everything else, all he could think about was his family and all the other bees in the hive. Finally, he could see the hive, there was no sign of Nomada, she must be inside already.

Burton came busting into the hive and was instantly swept up in the frenzy. The rest of the hive had noticed Nomada’s entrance and had already begun their defense protocols. The ingenious defense strategy they came up with consisted of flapping their wings really hard. Burton and his gang are slightly more robust and able to handle temperatures a few degrees higher than their enemy.

By all the bees working together and flapping their wings really hard they are able to create enough heat to kill Nomada.

Burton began flapping for his life, literally. Nomada didn’t give up without a fight, she hadn’t survived this long without a few tricks of her own. Nomada fought to get free, knowing she would never be able to fight them he just needed to escape. After an epic battle that lasted nearly three minutes, Nomada was conquered by Burton and the bees.

The entire hive erupted with cheers and shouts of joy and happiness. Burton rushed to find his family, they were safe, the whole hive was safe. There was a feeling of peace and security. Not only had they survived, but they had finally defeated Nomada.