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"So we're all proud that our hive won the Colewort Award!"
"Yes!"
"Hooray!"
"Go us!"
"But we've been asked to make clear that this award is for the hive and not for any specific pollen-collecting or honey-making activity. We don't want anybee to be putting forward that they, personally, are recipients of the award."
"… okay?"
"So go on! Hooray for us."
"So... what does this mean about us, then?"
The strange bee buzzed, "You are contributors to a Colewort Award-winning hive!"
"So our hive won the award?"
"No, no, not your hive. The hive you contribute to."
"Um.... So, what are you referring to? The queen, maybe?"
"No, the hive."
One drone sang, "I understand that the hive's eligibility for the award was built on the infrastructure improvements to the pollen sorting system. But that's not actually, specifically, specified, and everyone widely considers that an administrative excuse to get the hive up for consideration."
"Why did it need an administrative excuse?"
The drone looked uncomfortable. "Well, there aren't precisely any categories that made our contributions to the honey ecology clear? There's one that technically is for honey-related work that is not itself honey, so we were awarded there as a hive, but some other bees feel that it's supposed to be an award that should only be awarded for waxworks."
The other bees were not satisfied. "So what, exactly, won."
The stranger repeated, "The hive." The other bees were not certain whether or not the hum of those wings was intended to express that they were stupid for not understanding. "Look. Your individual pollinations and honeycraftings are eligible for awards in the appropriate categories, but this award is for the hive."
The bees danced their consternation, wings shifting. "But what does that mean for us?"
"We are very concerned," the stranger danced, "that you not display any arugula inappropriately."
One bee went eerily still. "You have got," she buzzed, as she resumed her dance at a slow, careful pace, "to be kidding me."
"We have to maintain a strict control over the dissemination of arugula," replied the other bee, with great earnestness. "Lest we lose the right to pollinate it properly. We have had." Bees do not cough, but the stranger bee flexed and shuddered, "We have had some concerns with cleptoparasitic bees, and there are a number of beeple who have been making rather unfortunate salad jokes."
One bee said, "I... am not at all sure what that has to do with salad jokes."
Another buzzed, furiously, "I cannot believe we are being scolded about salad jokes."
The stranger bee shifted uncomfortably. "These jokes are suggesting that there are bees who are a part of this award, which was given to the hive. We have to pursue them diligently lest other insects get the wrong impression. We have," the pause was portentous, "been stung before."
"What is the right impression, then? Honestly. Nobody is going to take a mixed greens emoji to mean anything other than a joke."
"But they have!" protested the stranger. "There have been cases of beeple misapprehending the situation! They have even been providing honey and waxworks with inappropriate references to arugula."
"Well," danced one bee, "that's certainly a problem. We're all agreed that honey and waxworks in our hive are communal, not for the individual enrichment of one bee. You should definitely put a stop to that." A number of other bees joined the dance, embellishing it with buzzes and flutters of wings. "We don't raise the flowers which give us nectar and pollen," one sang, and another, "The enrichment of the hive is the flourishing of us all."
The strange bee buzzed, "So you understand!" and then continued, "We don't want to have to pursue those beeple using the mixed greens emoji on Buzzer, nobody likes to be stung, so we need you to stop."
The consensus dance unravelled, scattering bees in several directions, including some hovering and swaying back and forth in their confusion. "Does your hive not perform celebratory dances?" one bee asked.
"Yes. Yes, we do, but I don't see the relevance-"
"And you come here, to our hive, to tell us that we should not perform celebratory dances?"
"I'm buzzing," protested the stranger, "that a mixed greens emoji is not, strictly speaking, a dance, and-"
The bees swarmed. The stranger's accent, the stranger's foreign dances, which might once have been a curiosity, were now thrown open to furious, buzzing critique.
Eventually one buzzed, "Have you buzzed at the bees with the inappropriate waxworks?"
"Well, no...."
The furious hum of wings only grew louder.
"And many beeple believe that the use of the mixed greens is intended to mock the storied history of the Colewort."
"Wait. Your hive seriously thinks that beeple enjoying and celebrating their receipt of the award is derogatory? That our dance is an insult?"
"It is ambiguous and we must protect our right to arugu-"
"Oh fuck the arugula. Honestly. I didn't have any salad greens on my Buzzer but I'm going to buzz off and fix that right now." Several bees darted away.
"You said our pollenwork was eligible? Fine, I'm going to fucking nominate pollenwork in all the categories, and won't that just sting your thorax." Several more joined the exodus.
"Seriously. I was with you over the merch, bee, we all know that it's touchy to look like you're saying you own the flowers, but if you didn't mean our hive to act like we won your stupid Colewort why did you give it to us?"
One small bee timidly buzzed, "They didn't, it was voted on by the entire collective of swarms who chose to contribute," but nobee heard her in the uproar.
"I'm sorry," the stranger replied, wings fluttering distress, "I just don't understand how that's a dance, and -"
"Seriously, you don't know how to dance? Are you even a bee? Are you a wasp?"
"But... Buzzer is not a dance... how do you see the footwork...."
A bee sailed in from outside. "Hey everyone," she danced. "I listened to the buzz at this other hive, and they're calling us cleptoparasitic."
Nothing the stranger might said could drown out the fury of wings. "How dare they." "I hope they all get chalkbrood." "How could they say such a thing." "For dancing?" "I joined the rally of the swarms against the cleptoparasites and this is how they thank me?" "I was just a larva."
"They're saying that the beeple who have said they'll nominate next year are making threats like the cleptoparasites did, to invade their hive and fill its honeycombs with their larvae."
"But the stranger bee said that our pollenworks were eligible!" Furious consternation swept through the hive in increasingly enraged dances. "How can nominating them be cleptoparasitism?"
Somebee tried to suggest that perhaps the Colewort hive was feeling anxious after the previous round of cleptoparasites, but they too were drowned out in a wave of enraged, "They lied to us when they said we were welcome!" buzzing from the rest of the hive. "It's always like this."
In several places in the milling swarm, several bees started performing impromptu dances, of mockery, of bitterness, of fury. Old familiar moves were repurposed into new performances, and they spread, and whirled, and pollen was scattered in all directions in the defiant chaos. Diligent bees swept through, collecting the scattered pollen, tucking it away, filing it according to proper categorization in the cells of the comb.
"Speaking of pollen categorization," one bee buzzed, "have we sorted out what this award was for yet? Somebee must be able to say they're the recipient of the thing, oughtn't they?"
"So there's the argument that it's about the pollen categorization."
"Surely if that were the case they would have said so? But they said it was for the hive, on the award, and the outsider bee even said so."
As they picked up the pollen, they continued to discuss. "They said it was the waxworks category. Technically."
"But the category doesn't say it's for waxworks. It says it's for honey-related work that is not itself honey."
"Wax is made from honey," one bee noted. "Technically speaking. I feel that rather introduces a complex ambiguity."
"And they talked about pollen storage, but they said that was an excuse," one bee noted, quietly shoring up a damaged pollen cell with a bit of wax and patting it gently. "And that doesn't really help."
"Is it only the bees who worked directly on pollen storage overhaul that qualify? But, I mean, we all do pollen storage."
"I don't. I'm bad at pollen."
"But that's not a rule, you could, theoretically, categorize pollen, we all could. I don't know if Charmy or Barry or anybee in particular built that cell, there, but it's part of the hive, and we all build the hive. We all live in the hive. It's not like there's a hive without wax or honey or bees."
"We built the hive. We defend the hive. We are the hive."
"Fucking cleptoparasites ruin everyone's fun."
"So is the award for these seven cells? That seems weird. That's material that a hundred bees regurgitated and arranged, and then we all filled those cells with the pollen and honey, and really, they're just one little bit of the whole thing."
"And those cells aren't the hive. They're just … cells. They don't even have larvae in them!"
"I wish somebee would actually say what they fucking meant."
"Yeah, but apparently salad green emojis are a really big deal. Who knew?"