The Honey Shrooms
Many years ago; in fact, a few centuries ago, a small group of young Shrooms wandered away from the Forest Shrooms colony they lived in. At one point, they walked through a large field that was full of beautifully coloured wildflowers.
“Oh look!” exclaimed one of the Shrooms, pointing up ahead. “Look at all the bees!”
“There are certainly lots of them,” said one of the other Shrooms. “They won’t sting us, will they?”
“It looks like they are much too busy to sting us,” said the first Shroom. “They are busy making honey.”
The Shrooms stood and watched as the bees flew around the wildflowers, collecting pollen and flying it back to their hives. Out of the corner of their eye, they saw a honeycomb that was just dripping honey everywhere. There were no bees anywhere near it, so very carefully, they made their way over to it and tried some of the honey.
“This tastes so good,” said one of the Shrooms.
“It sure does!” exclaimed another. “I wish we could live right here and eat honey every day.”
“You know,” pondered the first Shroom. “We actually could. We could even start our own colony.”
“That does sound heavenly,” replied the second Shroom.
The Shrooms very carefully scoured the field to see if it would be habitable for them. They stumbled across a huge stump that had several mushrooms attached to it.
“These mushrooms are going to be our new home,” said one of the Shrooms.
“They are definitely big enough to house all of us,” said another.
The Shrooms quickly headed back to the Forest Shroom colony and talked to the Elders about moving. At first the Elder Shrooms were going to vote against them moving but then they were given a taste of honey. The Elders’ eyes lit up with joy. They could see the potential of having a separate colony that could supply them with honey. The Elders decided to give the young Shrooms their blessing to move.
The young Shrooms left the Forest Shroom colony bright and early the very next morning.
“What will we call ourselves?” asked one of the Shrooms. “We are no longer ‘Forest Shrooms’.”
“How about ‘Honey Shrooms’?” suggested another.
“That is a perfect name for us,” exclaimed the first Shroom.
It didn’t take long for the newly formed Honey Shrooms to set up their newly designed mushroom houses. Afterwards, they spent a lot of their time producing honey and before long, they had a shipment of honey ready to take to the Forest Shrooms.
“Look at all this honey,” said one of the elders. “I can’t wait to spread it on my toast in the morning.”
“Oh, but why wait,” suggested one of the Honey Shrooms. “Put a drop in your evening tea!”
“I never thought of that,” said the elder. “What a good idea!”
The Honey Shrooms stayed the night with the Forest Shrooms. They shared a cup of tea with a drop of honey in it, with the elders. The Elders loved it and having tea with honey in it became a new evening ritual for them.
In the morning, the Honey Shrooms were on their way home but not before they were presented with a new gown for each of them. The gowns were a golden honey colour and had a honeycomb pattern throughout. They were the most beautiful gowns the Honey Shrooms had ever seen.
The Honey Shrooms led a very productive and healthy lifestyle and they shared their honey with all the other Shroom colonies. The Shrooms loved their honey and the Honey Shrooms were actually one of the first colonies of Shrooms to have a trade market. They traded their honey for goods from the other colonies. The Shrooms never dealt with money. They didn’t need to. Their method of trading worked just fine for them for centuries.
Both the bees and the production of honey, were thriving. However, the Shrooms started noticing some changes. They first noticed the wildflowers weren’t as plentiful as they used to be, then they noticed the honey bees were starting to die off. The Honey Shrooms were absolutely mortified. They didn’t understand what was happening.
“This must be what leads up to the prophecy,” one of the Honey Shrooms stated.
“Yes,” said another. “We are going to need to ask for help from the humans. The only human we have ever seen in all of our travels is that beekeeper that we have been studying.”
“That is correct,” said the first Shroom. “We can’t be too far away from the date of the prophecy now.”
“Just two days,” said another.
The Honey Shrooms, just like all other Shroom colonies had to prepare for the fulfillment of the prophecy. The day of the prophecy’s fulfillment, all the Shrooms climbed up onto the roof of their mushroom houses. They all huddled together there until they saw the sign of the prophecy being fulfilled.
The sign in the heavens was a tremendously beautiful light show up in the sky. The Honey Shrooms sat mesmerized by the bright and beautiful lights that lit up the sky. They sat there and didn’t move at all until the light show was over. Now, they knew they needed to find the beekeeper and ask her for her help so they could work on saving their bees.
The Honey Shrooms knew that the beekeeper lived just a few miles from their colony, so they headed over to her house. They had to find a way of getting her attention. The Shrooms were only about an inch tall, so they knew that ringing her doorbell wouldn’t have been an option.
The Honey Shrooms saw the beekeepers’ car and could see the sunlight that was reflecting on the hood of it. The Honey Shrooms climbed up onto the hood and stood in the reflection, while holding hands. Their gowns were so bright that they shone an extra special glow and that glow caught the eye of the beekeeper.
“What do we have here?” asked the beekeeper, seeing the Honey Shrooms on the hood of her car. “There have been a lot of strange goings on lately. What with the bright lights in the heavens the other day and now seeing these adorable little creatures standing on the hood of my car. What is going on here? I have a feeling both incidents are related?”
The Honey Shrooms explained to the beekeeper all about who they were, how they were losing their bees and how the prophecy has been fulfilled, so that they can now ask for her help.
“My bees are dying off too,” said the beekeeper. “I also noticed more and more wildflowers dying off.”
“We could plant more wildflowers,” said the Honey Shrooms.
“Yes,” said the beekeeper. “That is a good idea.”
The beekeeper took the Honey Shrooms over to her field of wildflowers which is where they discovered some empty containers of pesticide that were just thrown about.
“This would be the reason the wildflowers and the bees are dying off,” said a Honey Shroom, while he was reading the information on the side of the container. “We must stop the use of these pesticides.”
“Absolutely,” said the beekeeper.
The beekeeper spoke to several other beekeepers in the area and they have all had the same problems. They were thankful to the Honey Shrooms for finding the empty cans of pesticide.
All the beekeepers and the Honey Shrooms banded together and after several intense meetings with farmers and city council, they were able to ban the use of pesticides. It was a huge victory.
The next spring, there was an over abundance of wildflowers and a ton of thriving honey bees. The beekeepers and the Honey Shrooms were very grateful.
Moral of this Story:
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