Location: Warsong Hold, Borean Tundra – Vengeance Landing, Howling Fjord – Grol’dom Farm, the Barrens

This oddity comes in via email from Umjin who simply asks “What’s the deal with the bees?” Included were several pictures of what you see here, drawings of bees on the sandbags of the Horde airships that transport people to and from Northrend.  I must admit, this one did stump me at first until I remembered a trip I had made a while back through the Barrens.  That trip is where I learned the darkest secret of the Horde and I hesitated quite a bit about even posting about it in fear of what the Alliance might do with this knowledge. But Umjin wants to know, and I’m sure you all do too. So here it is.

The Horde is afraid of Bees.

It’s true.  While making my way towards the Crossroads I found Trok, a young orc who was running day and night from this malicious insects.  I tried to talk to the little orc but he wouldn’t stay still for a single second.  He would just keep running from the bees who endlessly chased him around the plains.  I was admittedly concerned for Trok, especially after he continued to call for help from his sister Karu, who didn’t even lift a finger to aid him.  I would soon learn that this girl was not a coward but as sagely as the shaman Kranal Fiss (who I can only assume is their father.)  You see, I tried to help Trok with his bee problem.

I tried every attack and every spell I could muster attempting to stop the assault of the tiny winged fiends but it was no good.  They were too small, too quick and too agile to be stopped by brute force.  That is their greatest strength.  An orc specializes in smashing and slashing, a tauren could stomp you into submission, and a troll could throw a thousand knives at you in the blink of an eye – but what are these strengths against the masterful dodge and sting attacks of the bee?  This is why the wise Karu doesn’t aid her brother.  She knows that to fight the bee is to lose to the bee.  She understands the bees’ strengths, and she knows that a lowly orc has no chance to take down this cunning beast.

Everyone in the Horde knows and fears the strength of the bee.  There is no armor infiltration proof enough to stop them, there is no weapon quick or accurate enough to kill them and there is no spell that they are not able to avoid.  Truly the bee is a force to be reckoned with.  The Alliance only wishes they could possess the power of the bee, I know the goblins do.  Why else would they design many of their zeppelins to look like bees if they weren’t attempting to harness this power?  To decorate your vessel with the bee is to will your vessel to fly with the power of the bee!  After all, there’s no way a bee can actually fly, yet it does.  Wouldn’t you wish to infuse your flying ship with the power to defy physics itself?  I know I would.

So perhaps that is why they paint them on the sandbags, as a way to show that the horde and their zeppelins will defy logic and the world to do what they do.  A truly powerful sentiment that shall ever endure as a testament to the strength of the Horde’s aerial prowess.

That or it is the absolutely dumbest form of camouflage I have ever seen. No no no, we’re not a horde war zeppelin. Nope. Just a bunch of bees. Bzz bzz bzz. /sigh