Free Bees: Polly and Greta's Dream

By Fabrizio Salvinelli

Commanded by a Killer Wasp dictator, the wasps are deporting and exterminating the bees, whom they hate for their dedication to accumulating pollen, wax, and honey treasure. Many a bee disappears. Seven little orphans, including a blind bee, decide to form a resistance movement. Each of them takes on a nom de guerre that reflects their character. Led by Polly, the Group call themselves the ‘Freebs’.

A story of violence unfolds in Wasp City while in Jamasiah, the capital of the bee kingdom where the Queen speaks like Churchill, it is a story of resistance and goodness.

Eight young friends at the wasps’ military academy choose a secret name for themselves (the Winnies) and quietly organize to resist their regime. One of them, Greta, sneaks out in the mornings to polish up her flying skills.

Meanwhile, the Freebs train to improve their formation flying. We watch as they perfect their aerobatic flight techniques, race train, and learn judo concentration techniques.

The tale unfolds in a constant series of reversals as the bees fight their historical enemies and seek new allies.

Along the way, we encounter a wasp who talks like Gandi, see a lead character martyred, meet a traitor, hear music that instils courage within the concentration camps, witness the invention of the ‘red alert’ that the bee families adopt, as well as enjoying hilarious scenes with the Freebs, who hidden in a crowd spray ketchup in the face of a Killer Wasp, then tie him up and stuff his mouth with chips.

We hear messages of peace and brotherhood from the Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu faiths filtering through the action sequences, and above all, faith in the dream of changing the world for the better which unites the Freebs and Greta, culminating in a grand finale flight race between the wasp empire academies, in which females are not allowed to take part, only Greta never got the memo…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035831524

Fabrizio Salvinelli

Following the birth of his nephew, a renowned oto-neurosurgeon decided to write a book for young people and the young-at-heart of all ages. After writing Otoneurosurgery and Lateral Skull Base Surgery, published worldwide, he now publishes Free Bees, dedicated to those who dream of changing the world and do so with perseverance and faith in their dream.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Birth of an Empire

One malevolent day, carried on the wind or hidden in ships, some wasp eggs arrived on merchants’ caravans from the east. Those eggs hatched in the kingdom where our story unfolds, generating wasps that quickly became very large, as much as ten times larger than the wasps we’re accustomed to. Ten times meaner too. Their favourite food was bees, which they attacked in flight, killing them on the wing, gobbling up not just the insects but the pollen all over the poor bees’ body hairs and in small sacs on their legs that they were taking back to the hive for their young. You’d immediately recognise one of these wasps by their size if you saw one: they’re as long as your little finger. The tips of their legs are yellow, and you should definitely stay away from them because their sting really, really hurts. Multiple stings from them can even kill a human being. Men call them yellow-legged wasps, but the name people more commonly use is killer wasps.

The largest of the killer wasps, a whopping eleven times the size of a bee, was called Seth Broth’tammuth. He had hundreds of killer wasps around him, almost as big as he. They obeyed him and, as he did, indiscriminately ate up spiders, grasshoppers, insects, and of course bees.

One day in a bee-killing competition, Seth had taken fifty in a single day, more than any other killer wasp, a feat that earned him the title of king.

Seth and his cohort lived in a nest underground. If an animal approached, even something as big as a horse or a cow, they would attack it in groups: they had enough sting and venom firepower to be in with a chance of killing it.

Now that Seth was king, he got to call the shots. He needed servants who would obey him out of fear and self-interest. Being one of Seth’s personal guards brought the benefit of ordering all of the other wasps around. Seth had chosen Goth Alastor as his consigliere and given him the title Grand Vizier, like the prime minister of the Ottoman Empire, because this made him feel like a Sultan, with the power of life and death. Seth liked Goth because he was almost as big and mean as he was. Goth had a hooked beak and claws stained with blood from his prey: he deliberately never cleaned them because that leftover blood was so terrifying. His right front paw had been fractured in a fight that left him with a shuffling walk on the ground, but that didn’t bother him—he took most of his victims in the air.

Seth sat on a throne his subjects had carved into the skull of an unfortunate monkey, felled by a swarm of killer wasps. He grinned with satisfaction at what he saw before him: his bodyguards, a hundred killer wasps, and below them, hundreds of thousands of wasps, all of whom hung on his every word.

Every night before dropping off to sleep, Seth studied the greatest dictators in history. He liked Vespis Khan and Josef Waspin, but his favourite was Adolf Wasper. Now, there was a man who knew how to handle a crowd, eliminate enemies, and organise the state. Seth was only too happy to imitate Wasper and his symbols of power. In fact, he knew everything there was to know about him. When he talked about Adolf to his magic circle, as he called his group of closest, cruellest collaborators, he affectionately referred to him as Uncle Ay-dolf.

Wasp Emperor Seth, seated on a throne his subjects carved from the skull of a monkey killed by swarming killer wasps. Right, Goth, grand vizier and consigliere to the king.

Goth! cried Seth in his thunderous voice. Dragging his right paw, the Grand Vizier instantly approached the throne.

This place is a disgrace. It’s undignified to hide my palace underground. Maybe the itsy-bitsy wasps were scaredy-bees and hide in the earth, but that’s just not who I am.

Seth surveyed the group of killer wasps below him. He clambered to his feet and in a thunderous voice shouted, Are you afraid, killer wasps? A loud no echoed through the lair.

And what about you other wasps? Now that I’m your king, are you afraid?

Another no echoed out three times.

Goth! Send out explorers to find a cave, a large cave in a mountain, to be a new home for my kingdom.

Goth summoned the Head of the Guards, Jessto Ig’drot, who was a little shorter than him but had been weight training since he was a teenager. In fact, he was so big and muscular he weighed twice as much as other wasps.

Jessto, send out some scouts to find a likely place. The first to come back with a suitable site will be richly rewarded.

It will be done, Your Grace!

Jessto went to the guardhouse and called two officers.

Bring me the two little guys. Not long after, four guards escorted two small wasps into the room.

Jessto explained what they were to do.

Asmal, Stefan, said Jessto, fly off immediately and report back to me when you have found a suitable place for a hive. And don’t even think of coming back empty-handed, or you’ll be severely punished…

Asmal Tograth and Stefan Winkler were a little smaller than the other wasps. Jessto had specifically chosen them for this trait: it meant they could worm their way into the smallest passages. They were also very fast and had sharper eyesight than the others. In short, they were just right as explorers. Apart from being more or less the same size, they were otherwise very different. Stefan was, for a wasp, kind-hearted. When he was a mite, his classmates had teased him for being good, but he had never changed his ways. In fact, his goodness had brought him the greatest of joys, the love of his life Angelica, who was not only beautiful but kind and good, and she had chosen him from her many suitors precisely for his good-hearted nature. He and Angelica had married and had twins, Peter and Greta. Now twelve years old, they had raised them in a loving family.

Asmal, on the contrary… to call him evil was a compliment, because he was wicked through and through. He could act politely enough to deceive the people he was with, only to betray them later to his benefit. Which was probably why he had had no friends. Girls wouldn’t go out with him because he was truly unattractive, cursed with small, evil eyes and a hooked snout. His left cheek was disfigured from a tavern brawl, and his crooked mouth perpetually leaked saliva, which he either sucked back in or spat noisily out. In his younger days, he had had a crush on Angelica and asked her out several times, but she just palmed him off with a series of polite excuses, politeness being very much in her nature.

The two scouts left at first light—wasps don’t fly at night—remembering the whipping Jessto had given another wasp who had failed in his mission. They knew full well they could not return until they had accomplished their mission.

Chapter 2

Kingdom of the Bees

In the middle of the forest by a clean and fast-flowing stream, a thousand-year-old chestnut tree stood in a small clearing. So huge was this tree that it was said a herd of a hundred horses had once sheltered under its massive crown of foliage. Because of this, the forest animals knew it as the hundred horse chestnut tree. The most important hive in the whole bee kingdom, in fact its capital, Jamasiah, the City of Queens, had been located in a large cavity in this tree’s trunk for centuries.

All around were flowers of all shapes and colours, all beautiful to bees.

The queen of the hive was Alexandra. A beauty in her youth, she was still beautiful today. She enjoyed studying ancient history, because as the Romans said, Historia magistra vitae: history is life’s teacher. Alexandra believed that a queen could not afford to be ignorant. She never stopped learning in order to make the best possible decisions for her people.

Queen Alexandra particularly admired Apis Pericles, who lived in the fifth century before Christ invented democracy, government by the people, in Ancient Athens at a time when everywhere else was a dictatorship. She liked Winston Apishill too, because he had shown that democracy is stronger than dictatorship.

With more than 60,000 bees living in an admirably organised society, the hive was both powerful and prosperous. The queen had handmaids to serve her, but she usually sent them to help with the little orphans.

All of the other bees in the hive were worker bees, each with their own task to accomplish.

The hive’s countless cells were crafted in a hexagonal shape by architect bees, using wax secreted from glands on their abdomens. Cleaner bees were dedicated to cleaning the cells and the hive, and taking out the rubbish. Storage bees took in nectar, transformed it into honey and stockpiled it in the cells. As soon as the honey was ripe enough, they used a blob of wax to seal it into the cell. Fan bees created an airflow that regulated the temperature and humidity within the hive (around thirty-five degrees Celsius all year-round). In winter, they generated heat using rapid movements of their thorax muscles; in summer, they used their wings to ventilate and cool the space.

By day, guard bees stood as sentinels at the hive entrance, ready to sacrifice their lives to prevent any intruders from entering. Forager bees were responsible for collecting pollen, nectar, water, and anything else their families needed, travelling as far as two miles away. Over a season, that would be thousands of trips, packing and carrying pollen on the bristles of their hind legs, known as baskets. They stored the nectar they sucked from the calyx of flowers in their honey sac, and then carried it back to the hive. It was hard work, but as a fisherman likes to fish, a poet to write, and a painter to paint, finding and bringing in pollen was their vocation.

Those happy times were gone. Now, they lived in a time of pain and tears. For a few months now, killer wasps had started appearing in the local area. Many bees had left in the morning for a day’s work and failed to return to the hive in the evening. They all knew the appalling reason for their disappearance: they had been murdered by killer wasps, who had eaten them up as a delicacy. So many little bees had been orphaned…

One rainy day it was bucketing down through the branches and leaves in the forest, but not in the beehive, purposely built inside the chestnut tree trunk. All of the bees were inside: no bee goes out to work on a rainy day because the water would wet their wings and knock them to the ground; no bee wants to be deprived of flight, because they would be exposed to lizards, birds, and frogs.

Alexandra walked into the large central hall, where she knew everyone gathered to talk and play. Very rarely did she speak while seated on the throne: she much preferred mingling with her subjects, demonstrating that she was one of them.

All the bees loved her for this.

My dear bees. We mourn so many of our missing fellows, killed by these cruel monsters. I lost my husband, and my tears still flow. And now I must make a decision that pains me: until they reach the age of majority, no orphaned children will be allowed to leave the hive. They may help with odd jobs around the hive, but they won’t be able to go outside.

Some of the bees listened in stunned silence.

In a pained voice, Alexandra continued, I do this to protect you, young orphan bees, because you are still too inexperienced to be able to escape and hide from these monsters. You, worker bees, will have to work even harder to make up for the lower pollen collection and other work these young have been doing.

Alexandra turned and, sorrow in her step, started walking back to her rooms. Then, she turned to her subjects and said: Naturally, like the worker bees I too will work harder. From today, no more preparation of special meals for the queen, no more royal jelly. I will eat what the smallest of you eat.

A mantle of sadness descended over the hive.

Queen Alexandra

Like everyone else, Polly heard the announcement. A tad smaller in stature than her peers, with a delicate little face and large, curious green eyes, Polly’s habitual expression gave revealed a quick and lively intelligence. One sad day her mummy and daddy had failed to return to the hive, the victims of a killer wasp attack. Polly had been an orphan ever since, so the royal decree touched her personally.

Polly went back to her little room and started crying. She was crying because in one month’s time she would be fifteen, the age when bees were allowed to go out on their own and start ferrying pollen back to the hive. Now, she would no longer be able to go out and see the flowers she loved so much until she came of age. Eighteen felt like it was a long, long way into the future.

She sat on her bed and mulled over what she had just heard. Attempting to fortify herself, she muttered: I must not think of just myself. I cannot be so selfish and fail to understand the suffering we are all going through. The queen is doing what she does to protect people like me.

Polly’s tears dried up immediately.

Then, she thought bitterly: But as an orphan… If only I still had mummy and daddy.

Once more, Polly was on the verge of tears, but then she remembered something her father had told her not long after the killer wasps first appeared: Polly, if anything happens to me or your mother, know that we have been good and will go to bee heaven, and can protect you from there. Someday, we will all meet again in heaven. But in the meantime, you must be strong, and make sure you never cry in a fight; your adversary will use that moment of weakness to strike.

Polly swore to herself that she would never cry again, and that she would do something of benefit to the community. She knelt down by the bed and, as she did every evening, said a quick prayer to ask the Bee God to welcome all of her relatives no longer with her into heaven, starting with her mother and father, and then her aunts and grandparents, and then she asked each one of them in turn, Protect and help me.

Reassured, she climbed into her small bed and fell fast asleep.

Chapter 3

The Ascendency

Asmal and Stefan had been flying for days, feeding on gnats, small spiders and the blood of wild horses drunk giddily after plunging their stingers into their necks.

They would take off at dawn and turn in at dusk, in a hole in a rock or a tree. Now, as it approached noon they were flying along at almost 25 mph. Asmal could feel the wind hissing around him. He turned his head slightly so not to lose his aerodynamic posture, and said, We’ve been looking for a month, now. We’re never going to find somewhere suitable.

We must keep looking. If we fail, when we return the Emperor will have us whipped to death, Stefan replied.

OK. We’ll try for another thirty days, then, if we fail, I’m not going back to the palace to get slaughtered. I don’t mind leaving my family, Asmal said. Stefan didn’t respond: he’d rather be whipped to within an inch of his life than never see his family again.

They flew on for many days, inspecting hundreds of places, until one day, using his prodigious sight from atop a boulder overlooking a forest, Stefan spotted an opening halfway down a large rocky outcrop. His instinct told him this would be the place. He went into a dive and plunged swiftly down to the cleft in the rock. Asmal was somewhere behind, inspecting some other location. No doubt he would track Stefan down using their prodigious wasp sense of smell, but that might take a while. Besides, Stefan wanted to take his right and proper credit for the discovery. He entered the crack, roughly the width of an apple, walked around thirty feet into the mountain, and then suddenly popped out into a huge cave.

He immediately knew he had found what they were looking for. He stood before a cavity in the rock as tall as an eight-storey building and as wide as a football pitch. Cracks in the rock would provide countless natural lodgings. Not much light filtered in, but then again, Seth loved semi-darkness. There was even a little stream that drained off whatever moisture seeped in, enough water to slake millions of wasps’ thirst.

Stefan was overjoyed. When he returned, he would tell the Emperor the truth: that they had searched together, he and Asmal, but that Stefan had discovered this place, and he would get his just reward. Perhaps he would be put in charge of thousands of wasps. Maybe even the general responsible for all wasps, reporting directly to Seth.

His daydreams were interrupted by Asmal’s reappearance: Hey Stefan, what a great place we just found!

You mean I just found. Don’t worry, I’ll say you helped me.

I’ve got a better idea. Let’s say I discovered it, or I’ll report you for planning to go AWOL because you knew you were going to fail at this task His Excellency, the Emperor, assigned you.

You cannot be serious. You said that, not me!

So, gonna stick with your idea? asked Asmal.

Yesiree. And it’s not ‘my idea’, it’s the truth!

All right, never mind, said Asmal, suddenly amicable. I’ve gotta hand it to you though, look how great it is over there!

Stefan turned and saw another stunning detail that made the discovery even more impressive. The place was so perfect he could easily say they had discovered the cave together: there was enough glory for two.

As Stefan began turning back towards Asmal, he heard a swirling wingbeat behind him. Asmal now had a fierce grin on his face. Stefan immediately realised he would have to fight for his life. He tried to turn around and square up to Asmal, but Asmal was already on his shoulders, bearing down with all his weight. However hard Stefan whirred his wings, he was unable to get airborne. He tried desperately to shake Asmal off, but Asmal harpooned him with his paws. Stefan’s blood began to flow profusely. Soon, Stefan could no longer hold himself up with Asmal’s weight on his shoulders. He slumped to his knees. He heard a hissing sound behind his neck.

Don’t struggle. It won’t be long now. Just relax.

Asmal’s front paws violently pushed Stefan’s head forward until his chin touched his chest. He had already lost a lot of blood and felt weak, as if an impossibly strong force was crushing his head. He stopped struggling. That’s good now, you can rest… Asmal hissed, triumphantly.

Stefan felt a violent stabbing pain as Asmal’s stinger dug into his neck. As he felt his strength ebbing away, he realised he would not have enough time to ask forgiveness for every sin, but he drove the thought from his mind to use the last few seconds of his life to think of his family, his wife and his two beloved children, and that it was not right to die like this, for a hole in a rock… and then everything went blank.

Asmal started yelling, his voice echoing off the rocks: I’m so much better than you, so much meaner… You were too good, you didn’t deserve any reward, but I do!

Asmal would collect the accolades and honours due to the discoverer, but first he had to get rid of Stefan’s lifeless body; if it was ever found in the cave, it would be a token of his guilt.

He pushed Stefan’s body towards the stream and then hauled it onto a large log the current was dragging downstream, watching with glee as it quickly floated away and out of sight…

The world would bow down to Asmal’s superior intelligence, he thought, and off he flew towards the palace, deliberately slowly so he could savour his triumph.

Chapter 4

The Dream Begins

As she always did, Polly awoke early, ate breakfast, had a wash and then headed to the hive’s underground levels, where she set to work making honey, stirring the pollen in a large mortar. When it was ready, she would store it in the adjacent cells that they used as cellars. The honey would provide them with food throughout the winter, when no flowers bloomed and no pollen was to be found. It was useful work, which, by recent royal decree, was to be done only in the mornings by orphan bees older than fifteen. Because she wanted to make herself useful, Polly had kept quiet about only being fourteen, telling herself there’s nothing wrong with telling a white lie if it’s for a good cause.

She worked alongside the other orphans, all of whom really were fifteen. Like her, her friends had suffered the same cruel luck; like her, they all wanted to enjoy their youth, and like her, they shared her faith and confidence in the future.

Hey Polly, stir that ladle, lazybones! said Sweetie, nicknamed for her sweet nature as much as her evident sweet tooth. Somewhat chubby and with a beautiful face, Sweetie was the joker in the group, always ready to make a quip or play some prank.

Sweetie, the Freeb with a sweet tooth

They had given each other nicknames related to their likes and dislikes. Polly was Polly for her love and passion for pollen. All bees plunge buzzing into flowers only to emerge plastered with pollen, but one time Polly dived into a large flower and stayed there for hours, swimming in the pollen like in some enchanted pool. Her parents had had to go out and search for her. When they brought her home, they scolded her for scaring them.

I only slept ten hours last night, and I would gladly take a nap, said a bee who always moved slowly. Highly intelligent because she did so much more thinking than acting, because she liked to sleep a lot, her nickname was Sleepy. She was indeed the sleepyhead of the group, but when she was in bed, before dropping off and immediately after waking, she often came up with the most fantastic ideas and ingenious plans. Sleepy was also blind; she had been since birth.

Top left, Polly. Bottom right, Sleepy, the blind bee who loves to sleep

You’re not wrong, Sweetie. You can’t expect Polly to be as quick as I am, said a skinny lad with permanently tousled hair, who moved in quick, jerky movements. The fastest of them all, as fast as the wind, he was known as Windy.

Come on, no need to argue. Actually, they were just joking around, but Sweetie said this precisely because she was so good and sweet-natured.

Hey, how about we set up a mechanical blade with a belt propelled by a bicycle, so that rather than all of us it would only take one bee to stir the pollen in the mortar to make honey. Then we’d have more time to play! said a bee in spectacles with a highly intelligent look about her. Ever since early childhood, this bee had read a lot. One day, after she contradicted her mother about something, her mother had said: Don’t be a wise-Alec. Because she had read the Sword in the Stone, the bee replied: Don’t call me a wise-Alec, call me a smart-Alec, like Merlin the magician. Her mother just laughed, and later retold the story to her friends with affection and pride, and from that moment on, the girl bee had been known as Wisey to all.

In the meantime, one of the gang took some black powder out of a bag, threw it on the ground, lit a match and set it on fire.

A dense cloud hid everything and everyone, but the orphans weren’t concerned. They knew this had to be one of Maggie’s inventions. A few seconds later when the cloud cleared, Sweetie said, "Nice try, Maggie, you didn’t scare us, but still, cool trick." Maggie was called Maggie because of her skills with powders, stills, and chemical reactions, sometimes made her seem magical.

The other boy in the group happened to be the bee who was the least afraid of all: a lad with a haughty bearing and a sharp, penetrating gaze, more like a hawk than a bee, whom they all called Fearless. He lived by the conviction that the best way to reduce risks was to deal with problems right away, before they became too big.

The orphaned bees were firm friends who all acknowledged each other’s merits; rather than criticise the others, they strove to recognise and remedy their own faults. To some degree, this was a shared reaction to the suffering each of them had gone through: they all knew the others had suffered the same misfortune.

Polly from pollen, Sleepy from sleep, Windy from the wind, Sweetie from sweets, Wisey from wise, Maggie from magical, and Fearless because he has no fear.

Guys, come meet me at my place this afternoon after work, after we’ve had our showers… Polly said.

They were all up for it.

Later, huddled close together in Polly’s tiny bedroom, the little bees felt stronger together, as close to happy as they could be.

Polly had a specific reason for this get-together.

Guys, the seven of us are a group like the magnificent seven or the days of the week. Don’t you think we should have our own name?

There were enthusiastic nods all round.

Any ideas?

Maggie replied: The greatest gift we have is being able to fly. I suggest, ‘The Flyers’!

Sleepy replied: We all like flowers, they’re the reason we’re on this Earth. I say, ‘The Flowers’.

Sweetie proposed: The biggest thing we have is that we are free. I say ‘Free’.

Windy piped up: We already have a name. We’re bees. I’d say, ‘Bees’ works just fine.

Wisey had the final word. All of your suggestions are great. They all represent us, but I think we should go with ‘Freebs’, a made-up word that contains an ‘f’ for flying, flowers, and freedom, plus an anagram for bees.

The little bees jumped up and down with excitement.

Cool! From now until the end of time, we’re the Freebs, said Polly.

Yup, Freebs sums us up nicely, Fearless said.

Windy continued, I bet we become so famous that when bees hear of the Freebs, they’ll all want to be part of a gang of bee best friends, just like us.

Unique, said Maggie.

And super cool, said Sleepy.

Polly then said, Which brings me to my main point. Freebs, I cannot wait another three years before being free to go out, revel in nature and plunge into flowers to savour their pollen.

Sleepy said, But we can’t disobey the queen’s orders. Plus, it’s dangerous out there, full of monster killer wasps.

You’re right about the queen’s orders, but life is not always black and white. If there’s one thing my parents taught me, it’s that if you ever have any doubts about what’s right and wrong, listen to your heart and you’ll know. For as long as there’s a sky above us, we have our own moral compass. If you never go against your moral compass, you’ll always be in the right.

This was some rather philosophical talk, the kind of thing only Wisey was likely to follow. Seeking to help Polly