Buzz – The Story of Glorybee

The Hive is buzzing. Gatherer bees fly in with bags of honey, some bees are cleaning, others are guarding, and Droneybee is droning on, doing nothing in his deckchair. All sing: "Doing what we're meant to do."
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Outside the Hive bees collect nectar while delivering love letters from flower to flower. They sing: “They haven’t got legs, they haven’t got wings, if we don’t help the romance, there’ll be no flowers next spring.” Dramabee catches sight of a Hornet and flies screaming into the Hive.

The Queen arrives with her attendants. Some baby bees have just hatched and the Queen appoints them to their different jobs. Glorybee is disappointed only to have been made a gatherer. She sings: I'm a nobody who wants to be a somebody." The Queen warns them only to use their stings in the utmost emergency. If a bee stings it dies. They sing: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

While the gatherer bees are out the Beekeeper arrives to collect the honeycomb. He puffs smoke round the Hive to make the bees sleepy so they aren't afraid. He sings: "In Harmony with Nature."
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Glorybee returns to find the bees recovering from the smoke and the honeycomb gone. She decides the Beekeeper is the enemy. She doesn’t want to believe the Queen who explains he is their friend. She is looking for a cause. She wants to be a hero. Gradually she convinces the others that the Beekeeper must be destroyed. 'Look at the damage humans do to the planet'.

Busy with her plans, Glorybee fails to notice the Hornet. She has sown such discord in the colony that the Queen is sick. She writes a final letter to the Queen, explaining she is sacrificing her life for her.
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The bees follow Glorybee and gather ready to attack the Beekeeper. Suddenly she notices the Hornet. The bees panic but Glorybee orders them back into the Hive while she persuades the Hornet to follow her in. Once inside the bees surround the Hornet and cook him.

While the bees celebrate, Glorybee sits miserably by herself. She realises what she has done. When the Queen congratulates her on gathering the bees together and killing the Hornet, Glorybee confesses she was thinking only about herself. It was a terrible mistake. The Queen asks: “Was it just a mistake or a lesson learned?” Glorybee says: “Definitely a lesson learned.” She sings, “Alone we are nothing, What good is one small bee? But put us all together, And you’ll see what we achieve.” All the bees sing, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

BUZZ was premiered at the BSK Shakespeare Theatre, Salwa and performed by the Kool Kidz Children's Theatre of the British Academy of International Arts, Kuwait.  As part of the START INITIATIVE, a 25-minute version of BUZZ was performed in Kew Gardens, London.  BUZZ was performed as part of the Royal Jubilee Celebrations, at the Old Royal Naval College grounds, Greenwich. and at the Fowey Regatta, Cornwall amongst other venues.