He'd been handed over to a sibling, raised as their child, for most of his life. He was told about Mother the whole time, they never kept that secret. The whole nation was her children, all toiling away in their brief lives, working to keep each other safe from the outside world.

He had been one of the few men born, a one in a hundred chance, and had always been treated well. His education had suffered for the spoiling, but it was also fact that he would not work, he would not leave his home, and he would not live near as long as them. He, like every male, would be sacrificed, a price for the wonder that was Mother.

For a time, a brief moment, maybe he had considered another life, perhaps an escape from the Golden halls of the palace, but he knew it would still be death. A death without purpose. And isn't that even more terrifying? He was only 32, so young to his sisters(some lived past 200), yet so old to his brothers, but he felt he lacked the wisdom to really answer that. Even his sisters never questioned it. It was the will of mother, and estimates said she was over 1000, so who could be wiser?

Today, he made his pilgrimage, his final journey. He world be useful, for the first and last time in his life. He world see Mother for the second and last time in his life. And he would die when she was done with him.

But, unlike his sisters, who were useful their whole lives and perished, childless, he would continue in his children, his countless daughters. And, though he didn't know it, but Mother was not quite immortal, was even dying as he saw her, glorious and gluttonous. One of his own daughters would be treated, transformed, made into a new Mother. She would lead their nation for generations to come, and have sons and daughters.

She would never know her father. His purpose complete, his wings torn off, he would be cast from the hive well before she hatched. Such is the life of a bee.