The ants were thrilled with the news and soon, the entire colony was chattering about the upcoming visit.

“One of the princes will be visiting our bivouac! Members of the royal family have not tread into this portion of the hill for several generations!”

Though all the ants were descendants of the Queen, few had actually seen their mother after their births. Flattering photographs of her poised within ornate gold frames were stationed in the various foyers of the bivouac, reminding the workers of the gratitude they should feel towards the Queen mother; however, that was the closest they ever got to her. Even the princes rarely stepped into these pedestrian portions of the hill; the workers believed that the princes spent their time squabbling over the princesses—who would make her into a queen?—or fighting over the choice pieces of wasp or beetle.

Though the modest bivouac was already well maintained—the Queen had high standards—all the members of the colony put forth their efforts in making the hill immaculate. The chambers were emptied of pebbles and remnants of the grub feast from last week. The hallways were swept clean and the ceilings were trimmed so that they were all of uniform height. New tunnels were added to link the various rooms to each other and numerous sentries were sent out to gather food to fill the pantries to maximum capacity. The adolescents were ordered to clean up their rooms and, for crying out loud, get on with molting so that they looked decent for the prince. The entrance to the hill was soon adorned with clover and dandelion petals.

At the appointed time, the prince arrived with his entourage of workers. He said nothing as he tread quickly between the column of anxious ants, hardly noticing the smooth, marbled surfaces of the floor or the dustless walls.

“Welcome to our hill,” greeted the ant foreman. “Would you like a tour?”

“Sure,” the prince flatly replied. He directed his compound eyes at his flashy watch and said, “I have about three minutes.”

The foreman directed the prince and his bevy of bodyguards through the hill.

“… and here is the art gallery*, featuring some pieces from our most talented workers,” he proudly remarked, sweeping a foot across the wall. Etchings of scenes that the workers had seen on their travels outside of the bivouac were evenly spaced against the wall. The small skylights above provided a soft glow into the space, illuminating illustrations of battles with large insects, incursions into cracks in sidewalks, and conquests of picnic baskets.

The workers anxiously awaited the prince’s response; it was uncommon for someone of such high status to see the work of the hoi polloi.

After an uncomfortable silence, the prince simply remarked, “Those look like the work of larvae.”

The workers were stunned.

“Does he know that he just put all six feet of his into his mouth?” one worker whispered to another. The foreman hit him across the thorax with a foot.

“Well, I must be going; there are other bivouacs I must visit,” the prince sniffed. “What is the quickest way out?”

The foreman bowed his head and directed the prince and his coterie of consultants back out of the hill. As the prince did not say “thank you”, the foreman had no reason to say “you’re welcome” or “please come back again”.

The hill was in an uproar after the prince’s departure.

“What was that all about?” the workers demanded. “He didn’t even spend ten minutes here. He just wandered in with his important ants and then left—he didn’t even talk to us!”

“Except for that remark about our art looking like that of larvae,” an ant dryly remarked. “At least he said something about us.”

“What a jerk—I can’t believe he’s a prince. His entire colony is gonna be composed of hellacious hymenoptera.”

“Yeah—why does he get to be prince? He probably doesn’t even remember how to capture wasps or defend bivouacs! He’s off living a cushy life while we all slavishly support him and his stupid royalty!”

Soon, the grumbling of the workers filled all the tunnels.

“Stop—stop!” the foreman shouted. “Just stop! This won’t help us. The prince is the prince and that is just how it is. Maybe he’s just having a bad day; maybe he’s just got other things on his mind. I’m sorry that he wasn’t nicer… but, let’s just get back to work, okay?”

A few days passed. The dust again collected on the walls and the entrails of a grasshopper somehow appeared in the foyer. The art gallery, though still decorated, was empty and silent.

“You know why the prince was such a jerk?” the foreman muttered to another senior worker over lunch. “I learned that he never had any intention of visiting our bivouac. He had actually just left a fundraising lunch at the south hill—you know, the one with the gates, near the park—and was on his way to another fundraising dinner at one of the north hills—probably the one near the waterfront. That’s why he was in such a rush; he was apparently running behind schedule. The elections are happening soon and, you know, he’s got to raise money for the Queen’s empire. The Queen just asked him to make a brief appearance here for publicity purposes; this hill was never on his itinerary.”

* Ants are actually nearly blind. And I don’t think ants have photographs of the queen ant hanging on the walls of their bivouacs. This is called “suspending your disbelief”.

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