The History of Bees

Chapter 30 GEORGE

Blueberry bushes in bloom are beautiful things. I’d forgotten in the course of the winter, but every time Maine greeted me with its white and pink knolls in May, I just had to stop and look.

It was so beautiful that books should be written about it. But without bees, the flowers were just flowers, not blueberries, not bread and butter. Guess that’s why Lee breathed a sigh of relief every time we showed up. He walked around and kept an eye on his bushes, looked at the blossoms, probably wishing they could pollinate themselves, that he wasn’t so damn dependent on a sweaty farmer from another state and his equally sweaty men.

We were supposed to be here for three weeks. Lee paid $80 a hive. An expense that stung, for sure, but I knew of many who charged more. Gareth, for instance. I was cheap compared to Gareth.

Besides, Lee also really got his money’s worth. In every hive fifty thousand bees worked from sunrise until it was dark. Happy bees. Every single hive buzzing with health. He’d never had anything to complain about. I’d been at his place every spring since he took over the farm and the bees produced a lot of berries, every single year.

Lee almost stormed towards me when I got out of the car, sharp angles of his arms and legs, giant shoes against the ground, trousers a bit too short and a dirty cotton sun hat on his head, held out a slim hand and took mine, shook it and didn’t let go, as if he wanted to hold me in place and make sure I hadn’t left before the bees and I had done the job.

His hand was thinner than I remembered. His hair, too.

I smiled at his long horse face. “Look at you. Even more wrinkles.”

He smiled back. “Not as many as you.”

Actually, Maine was way too far for us, I should have found something closer to home. But Lee had become kind of a friend over the course of all these years, I made the trip just as much because of him. We talked a lot while I was here. He probed away, asking questions. About the bees, about our operation. Never tired of it. I teased Lee about being a university farmer. After many years of education and with great enthusiasm he bought a broken-down wreck of a farm in the 1990s. Started out with strong opinions about everything that worked in theory. Had to be organic. Yes, sir. Since then he’d no doubt made every mistake in the book and some not in the book, too. Practice turned out to be something else entirely. The last few years he’d completely reorganized everything. Now he ran a standard farm—the huge spraying machines rolled around in these fields, too. I’d probably do the same thing if I were him.

I nodded towards Tom, who was standing a few feet behind me.

“You remember Tom.”

Tom stepped forward, obediently reaching out his hand.

“Well, look at that,” Lee said. “You’re twice as big as last time.”

Tom laughed politely.

“So you came along this year.”

“Looks like it.”

“What about school?”

“Got time off.”

“This is school, too,” I said.

Kenny’s vehicles rolled away. It grew quiet. We were done putting out the hives. Only Lee, Tom and I were left. Tom was in the car. Reading, or sleeping, maybe. It’d been hard to get anything out of him again the last few hours. But he worked hard today, too, when he was asked. I had to give him that.

Lee took off his gloves, pulled up the veil and lit a cigarette.

“There. Nothing to do now but wait. I’ve checked the weather. It looks good,” he said.

“Good.”

“A few showers in the long-term forecast, but not much.”

“We can take a little rain.”

“And I’ve put up new fences, too.”

“Great.”

“That should keep them away.”

“We’ll count on that.”

We fell silent again. I was unable to get rid of the image of huge bear paws tearing the hives to pieces.

“Anyway, they’re your expenses,” I said.

“Thanks. I know.”

He inhaled heavily.

“So he’s going to take over?” He nodded towards Tom, who was sitting in the car.

“That’s the idea.”

“Does he want to?”

“He’s getting there.”

“Does he need college, then? Can’t he just get started?”

“You went to college.”

“That’s what I mean.”

He looked at me with a crooked smile.

The bees are calm the first couple of days in a new place, staying mostly indoors, at home. After a while, they take short trips out of the hives, check out the conditions and get to know the place. And slowly the trips get longer and longer.

On the third day they were really up and running, buzzing away on all sides. Lee sat among the bushes, fifty or sixty yards away.

Head bowed. He was counting, didn’t see me.

I snuck up on him.

“Boo!”

He was so startled that he jumped. “Ah shit!”

I laughed.

He threw his arms up in defeat. “You interrupted me!”

“Relax, I’ll give you a hand.”

“I don’t trust that counting of yours. You’re not objective.”

I squatted down next to him.

“You’re chasing them away.” He smiled. “There’s no room for bees here anymore.”

“Fine, fine.”

I got up, walked ten yards away, tried to pick out an area of about three square feet. Looked around.

Oh yeah, they were here.

A bee had just flown away from a flower. Another came to rest simultaneously. And by gosh, a third one, too.

“How’s it going?” I looked up.

“So-so. Two here. And you?”

“Three.”

“Sure about that?” he asked. “You’re just making up bees.”

“You’re the one who’s bad at counting,” I said.

He sat there awhile.

“Fine. Here are some more.”

I stood up, smiled at him. 2.5 bees per square yard is good pollination. That’s why Lee often sat like this and counted, almost like he was obsessed. Because the number of bees per square yard determined the amount of berries he could pick when summer was over.

Two for him. Three for me. It was going to work out.

But then came the rain.