Bee-kinden by David Mumford : Shadows of the Apt

Bee-kinden by David Mumford

There are small city-states of Bee-kinden in surprisingly many places. They are a quiet, industrious people who do their best not to trouble their neighbours. Bees work tirelessly for Spider overlords in the south, and cling to the inhospitable western coast. Most of all, however, Bee-kinden are slaves of the Empire. They are an Apt people, but they lack the fierce martial fervour and ambition of the Ants, and especially of the Wasps. The Bee-kinden of Szar, especially, are key to the Empire's western expansion. With their queen held captive in the Emperor's harem they are reckoned more loyal to the Wasp throne than most Wasps themselves.

Posted by Adrian Tchaikovsky on March 30th, 2009

Posted in Art, Blog, Home, Kinden

Tags: Bees

18 Comments

18 comments to “Bee-kinden by David Mumford”

Busy, busy : Shadows of the Apt, March 30th, 2009 at 9:28 am:

[…] is nominally National Bee-kinden month, and I have some more art from the talented David Mumford here. However, as a very special treat, the story this month is the first from a guest writer, in […]
Trey, March 30th, 2009 at 5:19 pm:

Is this thing on?
One question not all bees are the domesticated honey bee — where are they? They are aggressive little buggers.
Trey, April 1st, 2009 at 6:20 pm:

Another question — will there be any word or illustration about the grasshoppers? They seem to be another big piece of both the Commonweal and (now) the Wasp Empire.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, April 1st, 2009 at 11:16 pm:

I hope to get onto Grasshoppers later on — there is a story written for them, when I get round to it.

As for the Bees, there are surely "killer bee-kinden" out there, but to date the Bee-kinden within the knowledge of the Lowlands are all the more "domesticated" kind.
Trey, April 2nd, 2009 at 3:35 pm:

Cool. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.
low, October 20th, 2010 at 5:52 am:

Bees are the empires best artificers right? Does that mean that the siege engines and flying machines are created and piloted by them?
Adrian Tchaikovsky, October 20th, 2010 at 11:53 pm:

Bees are competent artificers, superior craftsmen. They tend to be pedestrian, workmanlike and unexciting artificers (just as Ants are). Aside from Drephos and other blips, the Wasps' best artificers are generally Wasps. Certainly most of the Imperial siege engineers and aviators are Wasps, although some of them may have Bee assistants.
low, October 21st, 2010 at 11:10 am:

Poor bees. So just axes, pikes, heavy crossbows, and the occasional sentinel. Bees actually remind me of a more common fantasy race of short, broad shouldered, underground dwelling, axe wielding craftsmen. They tend to get a raw deal too. But I'm guessing you all ready know this. Just like the dragonflies resemble certain tall, elegant, beautiful, bow and sword fighting staples of fantasy.
low, October 28th, 2010 at 10:23 pm:

I know their not as graceful and fast as dragonflies and flies but in the stories bees are described as flying in heavy breastplates and helms. So bees are strong fliers if nothing else, right?
Adrian Tchaikovsky, November 1st, 2010 at 8:12 pm:

No, not really. It's really not much fun being a Bee. What they really have is an absolute fight-to-the-last-drop berserker thing, which in itself is hardly something to look forward to — that's why the Wasps do the queen-stealing business to add Szar to their Empire. But the Bees are really there to show an Apt race that hasn't really made the grade. They're tough and capable, but they don't have the unity of Ants, aggression of Wasps or adaptability of Beetles.

Note that there are Bees elsewhere doing better — c.f. Dirovashni on the Exalsee which does very well as a business partner to Solarno.
low, November 12th, 2010 at 3:14 am:

So what does berserk-er mean anyway. (I've red enough fantasy to know what a berserk-er is but I just can't see bees behaving that way.) And do bees have any advanced weapons like nail-bows or wasters. How does "superior" craftsmanship come into making a crossbow anyway. I mean it's a mass produced weapon, not like a bow or a sword. (I'll say it again, poor bees. They really do deserve a killer bee kinden.)
Adrian Tchaikovsky, November 16th, 2010 at 1:18 am:

The Bees have a sort of battle-trance, where they fight to the death, heedless of wounds or odds. It's not particularly effective against the sort of weapons and tactics the Wasps (and others) can drum up. At the time that the Szaren Bee-kinden were conquered, nailbows and the like weren't much in circuation, but other Bee cities may well have access to them. They're good enough artificers, but their strength is really in the skilled and careful manufacture rather than design. Superior craftsmanship in this generally means better machining, balancing, smoother working parts, more delicate mechanisms, leading to greater accuracy and reliability in the finished product.
low, November 29th, 2010 at 5:30 am:

So bees would make crossbows similar to the one Lyrus used, except non-repeating.
low, December 19th, 2010 at 4:58 am:

What do the pikes of the bees look like? Are they just really long spears or are the y glaive headed or are they more like awl pikes?
Anton Juhl, April 24th, 2011 at 6:45 pm:

Will we see big, furred, non-suicidal bumblebee-kinden in the future? (although "big" might be due to the size of the other insects I normaly see here in Denmark)
Adrian Tchaikovsky, May 2nd, 2011 at 9:16 am:

Reply @ Anton — Bumble bees are also suicidal, aren't they? There are likely to be some small and relatively primitive Bee-kinden communities of larger, hairer individuals, somewhere off the edges of the map.
Anton Juhl, May 4th, 2011 at 6:19 pm:

Reply @ Adrian — Maybe although they lack the barbed suicide-stinger found on honey bees
Adrian Tchaikovsky, May 16th, 2011 at 12:04 am:

Hmm. Actually a kinden based on bumble bees would be alarmingly dark. They are a screwed up sort of bee, having looked at them. They don't exactly have the social insect thing off properly, and the yearly life-cycle ends up looking like Macbeth.

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