TBoKTB?, as they like to be called, bring a surreal element to the greenhouse. They never do anything the ordinary way, often backing into flowers (and their fellow bees). Their co-workers are perplexed, but fond of them nonetheless.
South and her twin, North, were identical twins when they morphed from larvae into worker bees, but since then their looks and life stories have diverged. North, who appears to be into the bee equivalent of body-building, has bulked up and tends to hang out with the larger, so-called Muscle Bees. South remains thin and slight with an almost musical buzz.
Sofia is the happiest little bee in the greenhouse. Her human co-workers say that no matter how hot and humid it gets in the greenhouse, Sofia always buzzes happily along.
These bees are known in the greenhouse as The Three Sisters, in part because there are three of them and in part because they're all Drama Queens of the first order and they remind their co-workers of the title of Chekov's play. No three other bees are as loud or an attention-getting as The Three Sisters.
Despite his Dutch upbringing, his human co-workers say that Speck buzzes in unaccented English. He appears to have a talent for languages.
Stephen is a bee with an artistic bent. He likes to trace intricate patterns on the flowers as he buzzes a tune of his own creation. Perhaps in a previous life he was a Broadway showman.
Susan has a favorite tomato plant, Kaitlin, and tends to spend hot afternoons just hanging around on Kaitlin's leaves, occasionally swooping over to investigate a flower.
Pip prefers it to be really hot in the greenhouse. In the middle of a summer heat wave when everyone else is wilting in the greenhouse, Pip is at his happiest, energetically buzzing from flower to flower.
In the race for pollen, Stanley is a tortoise, rather than a hare. He plunks along doggedly each day, from plant to plant. Although he never seems to go too fast or too slow, at the end of the day, it usually turns out that Stanley has visited more plants than some of his fellow bees who appear to be flying faster.
Sadie flew up to one of her human co-workers last weeksand started buzzing up a storm. After several moments of confusion the co-worker found out that Sadie was upset because one of the tomato vines was tangled. He straightened it out and she seemed satisfied.
