While the scout drones and dances in the dark, her sisters’ palpi mark her every sign like Braille. Who hears her hum her B will rarely fail to find the food, too far to spot by smell or sight. She yearns to tell the others its location, impatient spy in a covert operation. What’s in the flower of a common weed can comfortably feed the queen and all her hive, allowing the whole living thing to thrive. You may conclude when speculating why a drone must always die minutes after mating that, when the matter deals with procreating, each part is for the good of the collection. Those giving it protection, who javelin your skin, must also perish so the group can win. Is Earth a hive? Observe it from a plane, watch moving specks. You strain your ear, yet cannot hear the chatter of the people on that sphere, as you cannot discern the conversations of insects, whose relations are always tête-à-tête to us, whether a date or a debate. Do bees and letter carriers look the same? One organism’s aim, to stop at every box, the other’s to alight on hollyhocks, whose nectar’s dried on tongues. When tongues of ice hang down, it will suffice to feed the colony, more durable a creature than the bee who, three days by her lonesome, will expire. What does she most desire? Working for a mind whose nature’s still a puzzle to mankind.