The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin (most read book in the world TXT) 📕

included two brood boxes and one honey super stacked above the hive board. The cover was well above his head. There was no way he could even open the top as he had seen Alice do, let alone see the frames. It was so frustrating. In all the time since he’d been home from rehab, he hadn’t let himself care about anything. Nothing had penetrated the dark bubble he lived in as he relinquished any expectations for the future. Now this shining, living thing called to him—this magical hive life. He flexed his hands, wanting to work. It was right in front of him, but it was impossible.

Jake rolled past the newest hives that Alice had brought from Portland and stopped dead. Painted white and marked No. 13 through No. 24 in black grease pen, these new ones were just one brood box tall. Jake paused next to No. 13. He could easily reach the frames of this hive, he realized with growing excitement. He should wait and ask Alice, he thought. She would be home in a couple of hours. But then he thought, What the hell? What harm could it do?

He closed his eyes and saw the steps he’d watched her take so many times—lighting the smoker, cracking the top, a puff of smoke, easing the top off. He could do that. He listened to the hum, felt it buzz in his chest cavity like there was a golden hive inside his own body. Then he heard something else. The new sound was a completely distinct tone. He listened closely and heard it again. It was an ethereal note somewhat higher than the others, like an overtone. What was that? He had to know.

He grabbed a hive tool and a pair of gloves. When he tried to pull a hat and veil over his head, it wouldn’t fit over his hair. He dropped the hat and eyed the smoker. He’d read that not all beekeepers used smoke anyway. The beekeeper in the OSU videos he’d been watching didn’t even wear a veil or gloves. He dropped the gloves too. He was just going to go in like that—light and fast. He maneuvered his chair in close so No. 13 was on his right, which was his strong side. He closed his eyes and listened. The hum settled in his chest. His breathing slowed, and he heard it again, that golden note above everything else. He hummed along, matching it. He inhaled, exhaled, and cracked the top. It popped off easily because the hive was new and not yet well sealed with propolis. Then he jimmied the inner cover off and set it aside. A trio of bees buzzed up and out, flying around Jake’s face. He sat very still with his hands in his lap and his eyes closed.

“Hello, ladies,” he murmured, mimicking Alice. “Just coming in to have a look. No need to worry.”

The guard bees frisked his face and neck for a minute or so. Jake was motionless as they zipped in front of his closed eyes, his ears, his mouth. Then they went back into the hive, having decided he was no threat. Jake marveled at his own calm, which then became a self-fulfilling enterprise. He used the hive tool to loosen a frame in the brood box, lifted it slowly with two fingers, and held it in front of his face. This one didn’t have much going on. A few bees, and just the start of a wax layer. Jake leaned it against the side of the hive, loosened another, and pulled it out. He worked through the next two frames, noting that each showed more activity. The fourth frame was harder to extract. He pried up one side, sticky with propolis, and it slipped back down. The bees buzzed in complaint. Jake froze as the guard bees flew up, hovered, and dispersed again. He eased the frame up and out. It hung heavy on his fingertips. Just like the photos in the books, it had a ring of honey on the outside with a pollen band in the center and capped brood cells at the bottom. The frame began to slip in his fingers, and he willed himself to concentrate. He exhaled and slid the frame back into place and kept going.

The fifth frame was also packed, but he felt something different when he lifted it out. He heard a shift of sound. There it was—that bell-like note. He would swear it was a G-sharp. He lifted the frame to eye level. There in the middle of the wax-covered surface the worker bees moved slowly around one central point. And there she was. In the middle of the golden crawling bodies, Jake saw the queen. Her long, tapered figure was marked with a bright green dot, just like Alice had said. She was discernably larger than the worker bees—her wings reaching far down her torso. Her movements were slower and more graceful than the others. He leaned forward. Yes, now he was sure of it. This other sound, this note, was coming from the queen.

He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of honey and wax. His heart thumped; his whole body felt the vibration. Jake knew that he was holding the absolute life of the hive in his hands. If anything happened to the queen, the others would not survive. He felt strangely calm and confident, he realized. He would never let anything bad happen to her. He opened his eyes and looked at her again, and then lowered the frame back into the brood box, replaced the other frames, and put the cover back on.

As the sun moved across the meadow, Jake went through six of the twelve new hives—hatless, gloveless, and without a smoker—with slow and methodical care. He was not stung once. After shutting the second hive, he remembered Alice’s record-keeping book and retrieved it from the barn to take notes. He mimicked her entries as best he