With velvet slipper, wing of gauze
And robe of black and yellow plush
The Queen hoards treasures in her home
Enough to make a pharaoh blush

And here she lolls and dines upon
her jelly and her pollen cake
Inside a tessellated hive
like something Byzantines would make

The foragers are on their rounds
and as the yawning flowers unfold
They let the bees buzz in to load
their gleaming freight of powdered gold

They've flown their fusty catacomb
to breathe the air of perfumed bowers
To haunt the velvet labyrinths
and silken chambers of the flowers

And once inside, they feast upon
each tiny toothsome nectary
For nectar is the stuff of Gods-
A taste of Immortality

While in her home, upon her throne
the Queen sits fearing an attack-
It won't be long, she knows, until
her workers stab her in the back

For though she lives a gilded life
of bee-bread and of honeycomb
More intrigue swirls within her walls
than in the courts of Ancient Rome