The Hive

Bees are in trouble

Short story inspired by Franz Kafka

The Hive

In the heart of Edinburgh, where the cobblestone streets of the Old Town met the modern bustle of Princes Street, lived Lachlan Murray, a young businessman of thirty-two. Lachlan was a rising star at AgriTech Solutions, a company specializing in pesticide development. With his sharp suits, sharper mind, and a relentless drive, he’d climbed the corporate ladder to become head of product development. His days were a blur of meetings, lab reports, and late-night emails, all fueled by strong black coffee and an unshakable belief in progress. AgriTech’s pesticides were, in Lachlan’s mind, a triumph of science, protecting crops, feeding millions. The whispers about their impact on pollinators, particularly bees, were dismissed as collateral damage in the war against hunger. He trusted the company’s assurances that the science was sound, that the losses were minimal.

But the bees, silent in their suffering, had other plans for Lachlan.

One crisp October morning, Lachlan awoke in his sleek Leith flat, the dawn light filtering through floor-to-ceiling windows. The air smelled faintly of the sea, carried on a breeze from the Firth of Forth. He stretched, his muscles taut from a late-night gym session, and began his routine: a scalding shower, a protein shake, and a glance at the Financial Times. But as he reached for his razor, a peculiar sensation gripped him, a tingling, like static electricity dancing across his skin. He shook it off, attributing it to fatigue. Yet, as he buttoned his shirt, his fingers felt clumsy, as if they were shrinking inside his sleeves. His reflection in the mirror seemed… off. His eyes, usually a steady hazel, glinted with an unnatural sheen.

By the time he reached for his phone, the world was growing larger, or he was growing smaller. His hands, now tiny and claw-like, scrabbled uselessly at the device. Panic surged as his body convulsed, his vision fracturing into a kaleidoscope of colors. His skin hardened, sprouting fine hairs; his arms sprouted delicate, translucent wings. A scream lodged in his throat, but it emerged as a faint buzz. Lachlan Murray, the man who commanded boardrooms, was no longer human. He was a bee.

He stumbled, his new legs unsteady, and fell from the countertop to the floor. The flat, once a symbol of his success, was now a vast, alien landscape. Dust motes floated like boulders; the weave of the rug loomed like a forest. Before he could process this nightmare, a low hum filled the air. Three bees, their black-and-yellow bodies gleaming, hovered above him. Their compound eyes studied him, unreadable. One extended a leg, as if beckoning. Too dazed to resist, Lachlan buzzed his wings, instinct guiding him where logic failed, and followed.

They flew through an open window, over Edinburgh’s rooftops, past the Castle’s ancient stones, and into the countryside. The journey was a blur of wind and color, Lachlan’s new senses overwhelmed by the scent of heather and the vibration of the air. They descended into a meadow, where a massive hive hummed with life. The structure, a labyrinth of wax and honey, pulsed with the collective energy of thousands. Lachlan was ushered through tunnels, past workers tending hexagonal cells, until he reached a central chamber. There, on a throne of comb, sat the Queen Bee.

She was immense, her abdomen gleaming like polished amber, her presence radiating authority. Her antennae twitched as she regarded Lachlan. “You are not one of us,” she said, her voice a resonant hum that seemed to bypass his ears and vibrate in his core. “Yet you bear our form. The hive has sensed your arrival, human-who-is-bee. Tell me, why have you come?”

Lachlan, still grappling with his transformation, buzzed haltingly. “I… I don’t know. This morning, I was a man. Now I’m… this. I don’t understand.”

The Queen’s mandibles clicked thoughtfully. “The world has a way of correcting imbalances. Perhaps you were chosen to see what your kind has wrought. Our kind, bees, are dying. Your human machines, your poisons, choke our skies and taint our flowers. If you are to stay, you must learn our ways, contribute to the hive. Only then will you understand. Will you accept this?”

Lachlan’s mind raced. Refusal might mean death, or worse, abandonment in this alien body. But acceptance meant surrendering his identity, his ambitions. Yet, what choice did he have? “I’ll stay,” he buzzed, the sound barely masking his fear.

And so began Lachlan’s life as a worker bee. He was assigned to a foraging team, learning to navigate by the sun, to seek out clover and thistle in the meadows beyond Edinburgh. His human mind struggled with the hive’s collectivism, no individual glory, only the survival of the whole. He learned the waggle dance, a precise choreography that conveyed the location of nectar. He tasted the world through his antennae, each flower a burst of chemical poetry. The hive’s rhythm, work, rest, feed, repeat, was relentless, yet strangely fulfilling. He began to see the beauty in their unity, the fragility of their existence.

But the outside world haunted him. On foraging trips, he saw fields dusted with AgriTech’s pesticides, their faint chemical tang a death knell for his new kin. Dead bees littered the ground near treated crops, their wings still, their bodies curled in defeat. Lachlan’s human guilt gnawed at him. He’d signed off on those formulas, reassured farmers they were safe. Now, he saw the lie in every corpse.

At night, in the hive’s quiet hum, he wrestled with his future. If he became human again, could he return to AgriTech? The money, the status, the life he’d built, could he reclaim it, knowing the cost? Or would he abandon it all to protect the bees? He imagined starting a new venture, one dedicated to organic farming, to restoring habitats. But the risk was immense, failure could mean ruin, and he’d seen colleagues mocked for “going soft.” The Queen, sensing his turmoil, offered no answers. “The hive does not dwell on what might be,” she said. “We act for the now, for survival.”

Weeks passed, then months. Lachlan grew adept as a bee, his human memories fading like a dream. He no longer flinched at the hive’s closeness, no longer yearned for coffee or corner offices. But one morning, as he returned from a foraging run, the tingling returned. His wings faltered; his vision blurred. He collapsed in a meadow, his body convulsing. When he awoke, he was human again, sprawled in the grass, naked and shivering. The hive was gone, hidden in the vastness of the field.

Lachlan stumbled back to Edinburgh, his mind a storm of bee and human thoughts. His flat was as he’d left it, his phone buzzing with unread emails from AgriTech. The company hadn’t noticed his absence, his deputy had covered for him, assuming he was on a bender or a sudden holiday. He could slip back into his life, no questions asked.

But as he sat at his desk, staring at a report on a new pesticide formula, he saw the dead bees in his mind’s eye. He saw the Queen’s unyielding gaze, felt the hum of the hive in his bones. He couldn’t unsee the truth. AgriTech’s profits were built on destruction, and he’d been complicit.

The next day, Lachlan resigned. He sold his flat, liquidated his investments, and founded Pollinate Scotland, a startup dedicated to bee conservation. He lobbied for stricter pesticide regulations, partnered with organic farmers, and planted wildflower meadows across the Lothians. The work was grueling, the finances precarious, but every buzzing hive he visited felt like a victory. He never told anyone about his time as a bee, who would believe him? But in quiet moments, when he watched a worker bee dance across a flower, he felt the hive’s pulse, a reminder of the life he’d chosen.

Lachlan Murray, once a man of profit, had become a man of purpose. And somewhere, in the hum of a distant hive, the Queen approved.