had ever been seen in that Forest or any other. On every twig within reach were wreaths of flowers, and from every branch hung tinkly, glittery things which twisted and turned in the breeze and reflected the crimson sky.
Piglet sighed. “That is beautiful.”
“Yes,”said Pooh, “but will the bees think so?”
There was nothing for it but to wait until the morning.
Pooh had a dream that night. He was in a cage, and beyond the bars of the cage was a honey tree. It was covered in buds, and from each bud there dripped down a rich, heavy dollop of—oh, my! But whenever he tried to stretch his paws through the bars they were immediately grasped by brambles.
Suddenly he woke up. Through the window he could just see to the east a lightening of the sky, all lemon and pink.
Would the bees be back? Would there be honey?
Pooh’s stomach rumbled sadly, but he ignored it and climbed out of bed.
It was so cold at dawn in the Hundred Acre Wood that Pooh could see his breath making smoke signals in the air. He listened hard and could just hear the tinkly, glittery sounds of all the things that were hanging from the tree. He rounded the corner, and there in front of him stood the hollow oak.
But no bees.
“Oh . . . bother,” said Pooh, though bother was not quite what he meant. “Oh, double bother!” he added.
He felt as if he should very probably compose a hum; only it was as if the bees had taken all the hums with them. There were no hums left in the world, and no honey and no smackerels of anything, and only empty tummies ... and while there might be a rhyme or two in all that, Pooh didn’t have the heart for it.
“Please come back and make some honey,” he said to any bees who might be listening. But, of course, no bee could hear him.
Pooh sat on the ground and stared at the empty, glittering tree. He stared until the sun was high in the sky, and the other animals came to find out if Lottie’s plan had worked.
When they saw how things were, they began to remove the decorations from the tree. They took away the airplane, and the marbles, and the baubles, and the spoons and the forks, and the tiara that had glittered so beautifully, although it was only paste.
When they were finished, Christopher Robin said to Pooh, “Don’t worry, we’ll think of an idea,” and he led everyone away.
Pooh didn’t go with them, but stood quietly wishing that he was not a Bear of Little Brain and that he could think of an idea himself.
Pooh decided to go back to the bramble bush and check that the swarm was still there, which it was. Then it occurred to him that if he stood on a nearby branch, he might be able to hear the humming noise that Lottie had said the Queen made. Perhaps if a Honeyless Bear bowed very low and asked her very nicely, a Queen might take pity on him.
Still all Pooh could hear was the rustle of leaves. Maybe if he edged a little farther so that his ears were really close to the bees, then . . .
There was a loud crack as the branch on which he was standing gave way. Pooh landed face-first, right in the middle of the swarm—and in the brambles.
Then for the first time he heard the humming noise, and he thought to himself that it must be the Queen, but no sooner had he thought this than he felt a sharp pain on the end of his nose. It might have been a sting and it might have been a bramble, but he found that he didn’t care which just so long as there weren’t any more.
So he picked himself up and ran away as quickly as he could, and the bees flew after him just as fast.
Then, as he ran from the bees thinking about very little except that he was running and a swarm of angry bees was behind him, Pooh found that he had an idea. And it was not just an everyday idea, but one of the very best ideas he had ever had. Instead of running back to his own house, or Christopher Robin’s house, or anywhere else at all, he went straight back to the hollow tree.
When he got there, he pretended to hide inside. Sounding crosser than ever, the bees