Talent AntFolk

Asking Tairrena

By AntFolk | 2007

Please tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Tairrena and I’m a honeybee from Mrs. Sweetgrass’s colony. I’m six years old and just passed Survival Skills many weeks ago. I’m bored. There’s nothing to do here. We aren’t allowed to go beyond the main branch in front of the knothole. One of these days I want to see what is going on outside the tree. There’s got to be something more exciting than this. I’m sick of being picked on in the playground for being different. Cairrena is the worst of them. I’m scared of her. I need to get out of this nest, but my caregiver won’t let me. He says it’s too risky and he doesn’t want to lose me. He seems to be very sad about something but he won’t tell me. I wish Dr. Tom would open up more and tell me about him self. He seems to know about ants. I wonder if he had a friend that was an ant. He won’t tell me when I ask. He says it hurts him to think…

Tairrena, can you tell us a little about your colony?

Uh…umm… My teacher said we moved here several years ago. I forgot how long, but it’s been long ago. I hadn’t hatched yet. I may not even been an egg. There are plenty of flowers, though the grown-ups claim the flowers aren’t growing. The grown-ups say that new flowers are not growing either. In a number of years we may be out of food. That’s scary. I can’t miss lunch without being very hungry. I can’t imagine going a week or more without food. They say when the Honeyvels used to exist, there used to be plenty of flowers. These flowers gave food to both their colony and our colony. The Honeyvels are the only race of ant folk our colony trusts. I wonder what happened to the Honeyvels? The grown-ups say they found one Honeyvel colony several years ago, but the fire ants wiped them out. Is that really true? Who are those ants are that live below us right now? The grown ups tell me to avoid them because they are not Honeyvels. This colony is not taking care of the flowers. Is this true? Are the ants below us as bad as the grown-ups claim? There’s so much I want to know, but the grown-ups don’t tell me.

Thanks Tairrena. We hope you will find out what you’re looking for. I hope that you can find a safe place to escape Cairrena the bully. From what you told me before, she sounds pretty mean. I wonder if Cairrena may be just as bored as you? Maybe she would stop being a bully if she had an escape. Have either of you tried exploring that nest in the tree stump below the tree off to the south east?