time to waste! Go up the frame and preen yourself!" she said.
"Report for nursing-duty in my ward to-morrow evening at six.
Stop a minute. What's the matter with your third right leg?"

The young bee held it out in silence--unmistakably a drone leg
incapable of packing pollen.

"Thank you. You needn't report till the day after to-morrow."
Sacharissa turned to her companion. "That's the fifth oddity
hatched in my ward since noon. I don't like it."

"There's always a certain number of 'em," said Melissa. "You
can't stop a few working sisters from laying, now and then, when
they overfeed themselves. They only raise dwarf drones."

But we're hatching out drones with workers' stomachs; workers
with drones' stomachs; and albinoes and mixed-leggers who can't
pack pollen--like that poor little beast yonder. I don't mind
dwarf drones any more than you do (they all die in July), but
this steady hatch of oddities frightens me, Melissa!"

"How narrow of you! They are all so delightfully clever and
unusual and interesting," piped the Wax-moth from a crack above
them. "Come here, you dear, downy duck, and tell us all about
your feelings."

"I wish she'd go!" Sacharissa lowered her voice. "She meets
these--er -oddities as they dry out, and cuddles 'em in corners."

"I suppose the truth is that we're over-stocked and too well fed