“What will you do now that you have your wings?”

Willow said nothing in response to her little sister. Willow had just woken up from her pupa yesterday and emerged a grown bee. She was no longer a larva. She earned her wings. 

Yesterday she was happy. She could fly to her favorite tree, the jacaranda tree, without the help of an older sister. So that’s what she did. But once she was resting on its purple flowers by herself, she could see the world a bit clearer. It was very big. Even with her wings, she was very small. So she returned to the hive. 

“Will you gather food? Make honey? Guard the hive? I can’t wait to get my wings some day!” Redbud smiled at Willow but still got no reply. “I know! You could take care of the larvae.”

“I don’t know if I want to work in the nursery,” said Willow at last. “All my life was about earning my wings. Now that I’ve done it, all the time I spent in the nursery feels… empty. If I can’t do much as a bee, I must have done nothing as a larva.”

Just then, some pollen bees swarmed into the hive. “The jacaranda tree! It’s gone!”

No. That couldn’t be true. Willow picked up Redbud, for she insisted on going, and flew to the field with some other bees to investigate. 

It was true. The jacaranda tree was now a stump. Willow’s mind filled with memories of the tree, its leaves providing shade and rest, its flowers filled with nectar and pollen for her and the whole hive. Gone. 

Redbud crawled back from the base of the tree, her face alight with hope. “Willow! I found a seed pod! We can plant a new tree! And maybe we’ll find some other seeds, and plant those…” 

Willow picked up a fallen jacaranda blossom. “What’s the use,” she said. “Who knows if any plants will stay or even grow.”

“They’re even less likely to if we don’t plant them at all.”

“And a new tree will take more than any bee’s lifetime to grow.”

“Then it’s for the bees that hatch after us!”

Redbud went to the field every day to tend to the seeds. Then some of her friends joined. Willow couldn’t bring herself to go. She often lay down, holding on to her blossom, watching it slowly wilt. 

One day, she saw a whole team of larvae crawl towards the field. “I asked our nursery leader to make it a field trip,” said Redbud. The whole nursery room was going? Willow felt a pull in her heart to join them, one she couldn’t ignore any longer. 

So she flew to the field. At first she saw the stump, a reminder of the tree now gone. But that wasn’t all. She also saw a garden. Larvae and grown winged bees alike were tending the soil. And there, scattered all around the stump, were sprouts. Redbud excitedly showed her sister each one. “This is buckwheat, poppy, sage, yarrow, goldenrod… I planted the jacaranda here, too.” Then Willow whispered goodbye to her blossom and lay it among the living plants. She looked at the worker bees. They were little larvae and little winged bees, but they looked quite big together. 

“You know, Redbud, maybe working in the nursery isn’t such a bad idea after all.”