Brabbins flicked back through the paper and found the picture of the bee, so neatly drawn and dissected upon the page. Even now, he could hear the bees battering themselves against the windows of the kitchen and front door and the wood of the two room doors, their angry buzz and the timpani of their impacts like the stuttering of some distant machine. They haven’t given up, he thought, and turned back to the sheaf of paper.
April 23rd: The experiment goes tolerably well. The honey and comb yields are noticeably greater from the new hive than from my existing hives, leading me to believe that my original conjecture was correct — yields can be substantially increased by the application of scientific principle to bee-rearing. However, further unexpected elements have arisen that need consideration. The increased size of the bees, and their wilder nature, has led to an increased aggression and a greater preparedness to sting. The stings themselves are extremely painful, far more so than those of the Western Honey Bee or any of the other common breeds, and cause high levels of swelling. The venom of the bee would appear to be more powerful than that of its more usual cousins, and longer acting. Unusually, the crossbreed bee does itself no damage when it uses its sting, meaning it can sting repeatedly without experiencing harm, and each sting seems capable of delivering a venom load.
Looking at his still aching hand, Brabbins smiled in humourless agreement. What had Holmes said the bee was sometimes called? The Wolf Bee? That fitted; it was fast and vicious and worked in a pack, overwhelming by sheer weight of numbers and tenacity. Even now, the sound of them was filling the house, bleeding in through glass that felt increasingly thin and fragile. Although a heavy curtain covered the study’s small casement window, Brabbins could hear noises coming from behind it; the solid impacts of things repeatedly banging against the glass, and the fierce hum of the bees. Somehow, they had found this window, knew he was behind it. Was it the light? No, there were lights on in the other rooms. Could they hear him? Smell him? He didn’t know enough about bees to be sure. Perhaps it was just a coincidence? No. No, the bees were targeting him, he didn’t know how he knew but he knew it, was sure of it. They were chasing him.
Hunting him.
May 1st: The breeding cycle is faster, and the queen produces more eggs than the Western Honey Bee queen. The hive is already full, leaving no space for new combs, and the larvae are already larger than would be normal at this stage of their development. The workers are bringing in more nectar (by my estimation) than the bees of the other hives. As a consequence, the social structure of the hive is showing some unusual developments. Chief among these is that, each morning, there are a number of bees and larvae on the ground under the hive, some barely alive, but most dead. Observations of the hive at night have shown that the bees and larvae are placed there by other bees, pushed out of the hive entrance in a constant stream through the hours of darkness. I can only assume that some kind of cull is occurring each night, with those found to be imperfect or underdeveloped or underperforming in some way being removed to make way for new workers. There seems little other explanation, although what imperfections the dead creatures may have exhibited is hard to fathom. Certainly, investigations of the bodies have revealed no obvious flaws or deficiencies.
May 3rd: The hive is proving increasingly difficult to manage, even under optimal daytime conditions. The bees are extremely aggressive and defensive, and although they eventually calm under the influence of the smoker, their activity in the period before the soporific takes effect is somewhat unnerving. The bees begin, as would be expected, by trying to sting me, but seem to learn extremely rapidly that their primary weapon is of little use and cannot pierce my protective clothing. Then, they begin to cluster around the seams of the clothing, especially at the wrists and neck, and also across the facial netting of the helmet. It is almost as though the bees know to block my vision by gathering thickly across the material. Sometimes, the weight of the bees on the net is so great that it is forced close to my face and my vision is filled with naught but brown fur and stings and I have to shake the net clear of the creatures before I can carry on. In higher animals their clustering around the seams of my clothing might be taken to indicate an understanding of how it is designed and where its weak points exist, but in bees this is, of course, illogical. They almost certainly gather there simply because they are the areas that offer them the greatest purchase. Still; it is a strange coincidence.
Another strange thing: the hive seems ready to produce another swarm. There are definite signs that a second queen is being matured by one group of the drones, and she is already bigger than the larvae in the surrounding cells. This is, of course, extremely early for a second queen to be developing, and must indicate further evidence (if it were needed) that the Northern Wild Bee is ideal to introduce into the ecosystem of Britain. Such speed in new swarm development will allow for a greatly increased production of honey and wax, and shows that already this experiment is proving to be successful.
There followed several pages of diagrams showing the bees, or parts of them, from a variety of angles. One picture caught Brabbins’ eye and he sat for a moment staring at it. In it, Holmes had carefully illustrated a dissected bee, using arrows to neatly label particular pieces of it. By one thing (which looked to Brabbins like a twisted balloon), Holmes had written, Poison sacs. Beneath this were a series of figures, the most noticeable of which was third in the list: 23% larger. 23% more venom, the ability to sting repeatedly, increased aggressiveness; Christ, what had Holmes done here? thought Brabbins, and then, because he had no other option, he read on.
May 9th: It is not a second queen. Since hatching, it has remained in the hive and shows no inclination to either challenge the current queen or to form its own swarm and seek to establish its own colony. Rather, it seems to have removed some of the duties that were previously carried out by the existing queen, who seems to have been relegated to a simple breed production role. Whilst it is impossible to know how bees communicate within the hive, by observing the new social hierarchies developing it has been possible to ascertain that the new creature appears to be in control. It spends far longer than the queen engaged in complex interplays of movement and touch with the drones and warriors, whereas the old queen is rarely approached now apart from feeding rituals.
May 11th: The new creature continues to grow, and although it is not as large as the queen, it is now considerably larger than the other inhabitants of the hive. The queen continues to be a presence and have a role in the hive, producing egg after egg, but she is clearly no longer the driving force behind the hive’s activities. She is fed and her occasional needs are attended too, but that is all.