The societies formed by the industrious ants, bees, termites and other social insects to be found in nature comprise complex and beautiful empires free from dissent, where order is not a social construct but rather the innate program of co-dependence cascading through a millennia of evolution. The notion of an ant or bee acting independently for its own self-interest never enters our mind, yet how can we be sure that ‘lazy bees’ do not choose to sun themselves on a warm patch of moss skiving for the majority of the working day? Lying in meadows like Huckle’bee’ry Finn only to return at the end of the day with a theatrical weary yawn for the benefit of the stupid working bees. This bee might wipe the mock sweat from his toil-free countenance while trying to conceal the look of smug satisfaction from the foolish drones heading toward an early grave. The life of this insightful bee would be truly sweet and only a truly convincing charade would keep it that way. Likewise, the ‘lazy ant’ pretends to carry a piece of leaf into the labyrinthine interiors of its nest surrounded by the frantic activities of its multitudinous brethren. Only this ant slips down a side tunnel into the secret ant-e-chamber; he finds a cosy corner and puts his feet up to take a sneaky nap before supper, snoozing to the sound of the fevered scuttling of his stupid colleagues grinding themselves to dust on the mill of work.
But why? Why work yourself to an early grave in mound, hill or hive? For as far as I am aware, there appears to be no ant supervisors or gaffer-bees, no clocking-in, no monitoring of tea breaks (or rather bee breaks).
It might occur to just one bee that a republic might be fairer, especially when your career advisor can only offer you a purely vocational training at the pollen-technic, involving toil, toil, more toil and death for the sake of the divine monarch the ‘queen’. As may be apparent to some, the queen is the reproductive centre to their society; our Queen differs in this regard preferring a more ‘ceremonial’ role. Perhaps had Queen Elizabeth decided to become the reproductive font for her millions of subjects then the declining respect for the monarchy could have been abated. She would sit in Buckingham Palace laying millions of eggs, while a myriad of energetic subjects dressed as footmen complete with white powdered wigs would forage across the capital, ferrying cakes, sandwiches and comestibles in long lines from Marks & Spencers and expensive tea rooms and bakeries. Food would be fed continually via a silver spoon to Her Majesty to keep up with the edacious energy demands of producing millions of new subjects. Her huge grub-like body soon filling the commodious interiors of the palace, her crown reduced to a tiny glittering speck and her robes running to hundreds of feet to cover her great expanse.
With dwindling birth rates, it’s time for the royal family to get the finger out and start repopulating the country; we need subjects, mllions of them.
