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

ruled by the seasons. In summer, diligent field bees head out to forage as soon as the first rays of dawn warm the hive, and they work tirelessly into the cool hours of twilight. Fall foragers venture into wet woods and meadows between rain showers and blustery winds. Winter hives sit snow-covered and still until spring, when the bees break their tight cluster to take up their work again—cleaning the hive, building new comb, and gathering nectar and pollen to build the family up again.

The lives of humans are similarly ordered, especially in a farming town like Hood River. Each spring, the citizens were drawn back outside into each other’s company. As the lilacs bloomed, snow melt swelled the river, and the days lengthened almost imperceptibly. People drew together with the sense of anticipation that only spring can summon. Even Alice, who enjoyed her solitude, felt the pull as she drove through town with Jake.

They passed the library and saw that the parking lot was packed. The sandwich board on the sidewalk announced two simultaneous evening events: the Hood River Valley Beekeepers meeting and a live demo from “Karl the Snake Man.” Alice swore under her breath and circled the block again, glancing at Jake. Parking was something she hadn’t thought of.

After Alice circled the building for a third time, Jake sighed and dug a skinny arm into his backpack. He pulled out a disabled placard and stuck it on the rearview mirror. He looked at Alice, his face impassive.

“Let me help you out, Mrs. Holtzman,” he said. “I hate to see you walk too far, being so old and all.”

“Oh, dear Harry,” Alice said, laughing as she pulled into a disabled parking spot by the front door. “He’s really one of a kind, isn’t he?”

She knew Jake was referring to the previous evening. After Harry had returned from his sprint through the woods with Cheney trotting at his heels, he’d offered to meet the bees again, determined, it seemed, to redeem himself.

Alice had shaken her head. “Tomorrow,” she said. “It’s getting dark. Let’s get you settled.”

The young man looked so relieved she almost laughed.

Alice led him to the small bunkroom in the barn that Buddy had built so many years ago for the nephews. It was simple but neat and had a small bathroom. With a pang she recalled the summer nights Ronnie, his brothers, and his cousins had spent there. There was a photo of Buddy on the wall, his arms draped around the nephews, each holding a fishing rod. Alice had taken the photo when the boys still had their baby faces. Even then, the resemblance between her nephews and her husband was uncanny. She turned away from the photo and the memories it threatened to trigger.

The next day, she arrived home after work to find Harry in the barn. She noticed he had swept the shop floor and restacked the wood into a neat pile.

“I see you are settling in,” she said. She wanted to thank him for tidying up, but the words stuck in her throat. It was just so jarring to see another person in Buddy’s space.

“Hang on. I’ve got a project for you,” she said.

She took a cart out to the apiary and retrieved the five now-silent hives. Jake, who was making notes in the hive diary, waved hello and followed her back to the barn.

Alice set one of the brood boxes on the worktable. She glanced at the pegboard where Buddy’s tools hung. Among the dusty screwdrivers, pliers, and hammers was another photo—a faded snapshot of the two of them sitting on the front steps of the house their first summer together. Buddy had his big arm around Alice. Oh, how it had felt to lean into his shoulder. Safe. Loved. She forced her eyes away and opened the brood box for Harry.

“This sticky stuff here is called propolis,” she said. “The bees gather it from trees to seal up all the cracks.”

Harry nodded.

“Some people call it Nature’s cement.”

He didn’t say anything. The kid sure was quiet, she thought.

Alice loosened a frame and pulled it free from the brood box. Her heart sank as she surveyed the devastation—eggs dried up in their cells, desiccated larvae, and full-grown workers hanging dead from the wax.

No use being sentimental, she thought. “I want you to clean it all out,” she said.

She demonstrated how to brush the adult bodies into a large plastic tub with a bee brush and then use the hive tool to scrape the wax into another.

“I want loose bees in this first container and everything else in the second. All the wax and the eggs and larvae. Scrape it down to the foundation, okay?”

She looked him in the eye, and he nodded.

“Okay, Mrs. Holtzman,” Harry said.

“Call me Alice, Harry,” she said. Her mother was Mrs. Holtzman. Or had been.

Harry blushed and nodded. Nervous little rabbit, she thought. She passed the frame to him, and he took it gingerly with the tips of two fingers.

“Don’t worry, kid. You won’t get stung. These bees are all dead,” she said.

She was trying to lighten the mood, but she didn’t think it was funny, and she knew she sounded impatient. Harry reddened, and she felt bad. She glanced at Jake, who was watching the exchange. Harry was young, she thought, not much older than Jake, really. She should be more patient. She mustered a smile. “Got any questions, Harry?”

He shook his head, and after an awkward silence, Alice turned to leave.

“Okay,” she said. “Holler if you need anything.”

“Do they always look like this after you take the honey out?” Harry blurted at her back.

Alice turned around and looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“The bees,” he said. “Do they always die when you take the honey? What did you call it—harvest?”

She paused and took a deep breath. “No, Harry,” she said, her voice low. “I didn’t harvest the honey. This hive died.”

Harry swallowed. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Holtzman—I didn’t . . . ,” he stammered.

“Don’t worry about it,” Alice said.