It’s funny how, in pop culture, bees are usually male. Presumably it’s the weapon—bees sting, so obviously, they are male as well. Of course, we know this to be untrue, and I’m pretty sure we knew this to be untrue when this cartoon was made. (I’m not up to date on the history of melittology.) However, when Donald Duck, Aquatic Sociopath, goes up against bees or ants, they’re always male. Though this cartoon also features a female bee in a heteronormative domestic situation, because of course it does.

An old bee named, of course, Spike (Bill Thompson) reminisces about his youth working for—I think he thinks it’s with—Donald Duck (Clarence Nash, of course). They started out as street cleaners, for which Spike’s stinger was admirably suited. Then, Donald sold balloons and Spike popped them to get kids to buy more. They had a business tattooing sailors. Then, they had an embroidery business, with Spike doing vast tapestries all with his stinger, The whole thing came crashing down when Spike met a female bee in the greenhouse Donald provided for Spike’s recreation.

At the end, we discover that she’s your typical animated shrew voiced by June Foray’s Cranky Old Lady voice. It’s funny; cartoons of the time, and to a certain extent live action, depicted marriage both as a completely normal desirable end result and also something that was miserable and soul-sucking. Presumably what the woman got out of it was both security and someone to boss around for the rest of her days; what the man got out of it is not discussed. It doesn’t even seem as though it can be sex, since the women are so unpleasant that no sensible person would want to sleep with them.

And, of course, these cartoons are a completely sexless world most of the time anyway. Your sex drive is your business, so I’m not going to comment on that, but it is a little odd when no one has one most of the time. There’s a cartoon I’ll get to where there’s a lot of kissing of Daisy, and there’s a Chip ‘n’ Dale where they’re fighting over a sexy chipmunk singer, but most of the time, there isn’t even kissing in these cartoons. I’m not saying bees are known for their libido, and I’m happy that they don’t show the actual predilection of ducks to be rapists, but still—it’s a world of nephews and unles and aunts and basically never parents. These characters never even get married, even after relationships that last for literally decades.

There’s a lot to be considered here about how Donald is almost a capitalist stereotype. I’m not sure what he contributes to most of the business ventures—he sells the balloons, and he does the talking, but when Donald Duck does your talking, maybe that’s an aspect of the business you can handle yourself? At absolute minimum, you can find someone else to do it, someone who would then work for you. But Spike works himself into exhaustion embroidering George and the Dragon with his stinger, and when he sews all sorts of romantic messages into things, Donald’s reaction is that he is ruined.

Also . . . this is not how sewing works. Probably it’s not how tattooing works, either, but I know less about that. Yes, yes, Spike’s stinger is ideally suited for stabbing things; all well and good. But when you sew, you aren’t just stabbing the thread. And I’m not sure how embroidery works with big machines, but I can’t use multiple colours at once unless all of those colours are going to be in the stitch. But, you know, it’s a Disney cartoon. I doubt anyone making it knew anything about sewing.

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