“Just Pete,” he answered. “I’m not a professor.”
Tom Healy shook his head. “I wasn’t sure,” he said, smiling. “And some people get uptight about those things.” The professor’s appearance suited the plain surroundings: rumpled shirt, cargo shorts, thin hair grown long and combed over a balding scalp. Pete knew his rumpled appearance masked a stellar academic career: he was a world-class authority on neurobiology, a Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and, in what he claimed was his most enduring honor, he had a species of bee named for him: Neocorynurella healyi.
The professor led him to his small, cluttered office and offered him a cup of tea, which Pete declined.
“Come on!” said the professor. “It’s just an excuse to use some of our fresh honey! I’m not helping you until you try it.”
He pulled out a small decanter, and Pete relented with a grin. The professor poured into his steaming mug a generous dollop of honey.
“God,” said Pete after a taste. “That really is good.”
“Told you,” said the professor. “That’s our ‘last taste of summer,’ batch, you’re lucky you got here in time.”
Pete put down the mug on the corner of the professor’s worn desk, and pulled out his copy of Hive Democracy from his briefcase.
“Ah,” said Healy. “Another fan.”
“It was fascinating,” said Pete. “Truly. Obviously I’m not the only one who thinks so.”
The professor waved his hand in the air. “It’s my third book on the subject, but the first time I’ve ever been asked on the Today Show. I’m the beneficiary of a provocative title, and I can thank my editor for that.”
“But you believe it, right?” asked Pete. “You believe the bees actually practice democracy like we do?”
The professor nodded his head skeptically. “Actually, I think they practice it a little better than we do. They almost always make the right decision, as a group; I’ve proved it experimentally.”
“And why do you think their system works so well?”
“This is something I’ve thought a lot about,” said Healy. “For one thing, the bees all have a common goaclass="underline" survival. They are making life-and-death decisions together. And secondly, while they don’t all have the same information, they all have the same preferences. So when they truthfully communicate their information to each other, they always agree on the correct path.”
Pete nodded, waiting to hear more.
“This is your area of interest, correct?” said the professor.
“It is,” said Pete.
“And you’re with the Department of Agriculture?”
“Yes,” said Pete, almost forgetting his cover story. The Department of Agriculture had a sizable presence at Cornell, and provided large amounts of funding to the university. It was both a plausible cover story and one that would encourage Healy to cooperate.
“How long have you been there?” asked the professor.
“Less than a year,” said Pete. “And I’m a consultant. Haven’t really learned my way around the bureaucracy yet.” He was trying to head off any obvious questions about the agency that he wouldn’t be able to answer.
“I see,” said the professor, nodding. “Well, you must be important. Or working on an important project. I’ve worked with a lot of Ag Department folks over the years, and this is the first time one of them was able to take a charter jet to see me on one day’s notice.”
Pete didn’t respond. He doubted he could bullshit a man as smart as Healy, so he decided to let it hang there, and let the professor decide whether he wanted to help or not. While Pete’s motives might be a little mysterious, the professor couldn’t doubt his influence, or the power of his backers.
He sipped his tea and continued to look Hamlin over. “How about we go for a walk?” he said. “I can’t leave them alone too long out there,” he said.
“The bees?”
“No,” said Healy. “Grad students.”
They walked across an expanse of grass to where a path entered the woods. Pete followed the professor into the trees. The air cooled instantly when they stepped into the shade, and Pete could tell that just as the name of Healy’s honey had indicated, the end of summer in upstate New York was rapidly approaching.
“How much do you know about bees?” asked Healy.
“What I read in your book,” he said. “Queens, workers, and drones.”
A bee flew by them in the air.
“So what kind is that?” said the professor lightheartedly, pointing.
“A worker?”
“Good guess!” he said. “Odds are very good. Queens rarely leave the hive, and drones wouldn’t be flying around out here looking for pollen.”
“They don’t?”
“No. Drones are the only males in the hive,” he said. “Their only role is to impregnate a queen. Consequently, they are the only bees in the hive without a stinger.”
“Really?” said Pete. He was struck by the irony, the drones of the hive being the only “unarmed” members. Without giving away his real reason for visiting Cornell, that made him curious. “So how did the word ‘drone’ come to mean—”
“What it means now? In ancient times, we thought drones were lazy, because they didn’t leave the hive to seek food or do any work. The term came to be synonymous with a lazy, idle worker. Subsequently, the name ‘drone’ was given to mindless machines. Of course now—”
“Drones have evolved.”
“And the term along with them.” The professor was staring hard at him now, and Pete was eager to keep the conversation moving.
“What happens to the drones after they impregnate the queen?”
“They die. The penis and abdominal tissues are ripped out after successful mating.”
“Jesus.”
Healy knelt down and pointed to a bee on a purple flower.
“One of yours?” asked Pete.
“It’s not marked, but quite possibly.” They watched it climb over the outside of the flower for a few seconds, and then take off. It spiraled into the air and flew down the path.
“My old mentor, Professor Martin Lindauer, used to actually run after the bees when he observed them. They fly about six miles per hour, so you can keep up — although it’s not easy running through the woods while trying to keep your eye on a bee.”
“I can imagine,” said Hamlin. “Do you do that?”
“I used to,” he said. “Not so much anymore.” He stood up from the flower, and looked Pete up and down. Assessing him. “So you want to learn the language these bees use to communicate?”
Pete nodded. “I do.”
“You know what we call it?”
“The waggle dance.”
“Good!” said the professor, happy with his pupil. “That’s exactly right. But the waggle dance was discovered decades ago. By Karl von Frisch. He won a Nobel Prize for it. It’s been studied thoroughly ever since, well documented, debated, revised. You’ve got decades of research to draw from. What do you need me for?”
“My understanding,” said Pete, “is that the waggle dance is how they communicate the location of food supplies. But I want to know how they make decisions as a group, decide on objectives, prioritize their work. The democracy of the hive, so to speak. That’s what I want to learn about.…”
The professor nodded, and seemed to think it over. Another bee landed on the flower, and they again watched it collect pollen and take off, flying the same route as its sister.
“OK,” said the professor. “Let me show you a few things that might help.”
The path came out of the woods. At the edge of the clearing ahead was a wooden structure, looking much like a small road sign — although there were no roads anywhere near them, not even the sound of cars. Two scruffy graduate students stood by it, both with clipboards. Between them was a small video camera on a tripod, aimed directly at the board. As they got closer, Pete thought the board appeared to be moving.