Trog

Mitzzi landed heavily on the alighting board, compound eyes streaming. At least she wasn't coughing; that would be an evolutionary step too far. Pausing only to brush off an irritating fragment of volcanic dust, she rushed in to see the queen. "It's pretty bad out there. I wonder if we should ground all flights for the day."

"Hmmm", said the queen, thinking that now she'd got into her stride with the egg-laying she didn't really want to have the pollen and nectar gathering interrupted, "Perhaps we simply need to adjust the foragers' flying habits. What's it like at lower levels?"

"Weelll ...", responded Mitzzi, " .. not too bad. I was quite a long way up."

"Right!" said the queen decisively. "Let's tell the girls to fly low and local, with a maximum height of ten feet."

"Ten feet it is, Ma'am." The message was quickly passed round the hive.

And so it was that the beekeepeer, wandering up towards the apiary, was startled to see a never-ending stream of purposeful bees, all flying between ankle- and head-height, between the hives and the dandelions.