The History of Bees

Chapter 35 GEORGE

Lee was hanging over the hives trying to tidy up. Even though he was hidden by coveralls, a hat and veil, I could see he was upset. Four hives were turned upside down on the ground. A big cloud of bees, confused, homeless, angry, hovered above the hives in the humid air following the rain.

“Ouch!”

He suddenly screamed out loud, grabbed his neck.

“Watch out for the openings,” I said and pushed his veil better into place. He could remove the dead bee later.

He cursed; I could see tears in his eyes. Maybe because of the sting, or maybe they’d been there all along.

“I thought the fence would be enough,” he said quietly.

“Once it’s got a whiff of honey, there’s not much that can stop it.”

That was when I first noticed Tom’s eyes on me.

“Didn’t you say there weren’t bears here anymore?”

I couldn’t look him in the eyes, didn’t want to hear that question. Picked up a box. Checked it out. No damage.

“Give me that.” I pointed at a frame further away.

He walked over, kept looking at me. Picked up the frame and gave it to me. I noticed then that his hands were shaking. I looked up. His eyes were as big as they’d been the last time. Nothing of the professor left; in front of me was a little boy.

“Is it close by?” he said softly.

I accepted the frame and held his gaze.

“No, they take off immediately.”

He stood there, watching me, his eyes doubtful.

I put my hand on him, something that I seldom did.

“Tom. This isn’t like that time. This happens every year and I’ve never, not once, actually seen them. It’s just the bees that take a beating, not us. And it’s hardest for Lee, who has to pay for it.”

He nodded, didn’t pull away from my hand.

“That’s why we’re staying in a motel, right? Not in a tent,” I said. He nodded again. I squeezed his shoulder. Mostly I wanted to hug him. For once, I could tell that he needed me. He still needed me. But just then Lee came back over.

“Three hives,” he said. “That’s $240?”

I let go of Tom and nodded to Lee. But I stopped when I saw the look of despair behind his veil. “Two hundred forty? No. Let’s make it two hundred.”

“But George…”

“Nothing more to talk about. You can consider it a loan.”

Lee turned away, swallowed hard. But Tom kept looking at me. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes said everything. And remembered everything.

It had happened the first time I’d been at Lee’s place, the first time I’d ever been on a trip with the bees. We hadn’t taken many hives with us, only the ones I had room for in the back of the pickup. I thought of it as an experiment, if the venture worked, I could expand and start with pollination on a small scale, mostly like a vacation. Because Tom, who was five, was going with me. Just the two of us, out in the middle of nature. Far away from people. Fishing, drinking water from the stream, a campfire burning. We’d been talking about it for weeks.

We found a hill a ways away from the hives. There we had a good view, on all sides, the ground was nice and flat. I put up the tent, took my time, making sure to push all of the pegs deep into the ground, that the canvas was taut. This would be our home for three weeks, so it had to be done right.

Tom got the task of unrolling the sleeping bags. He, too, went to work diligently, arranging them to perfection. I guess he’d seen what Emma did when she made the beds at home. He was enthusiastic, talking up a storm, hadn’t yet had the time to notice that he missed his mom. And anyway it would be fine, I thought. The two of us would have a fantastic time up here on the hill, the weeks would go by in a flash and be something he would remember for the rest of his life.

We lit a fire. Huddled together and toasted marshmallows. He shivered a little, so I held him close. His narrow shoulders almost disappeared under my arm. We looked at the stars, I pointed out the constellations I knew. That wasn’t a lot—only the Big Dipper and Orion—so I made up a couple more.

“Can you see the snake there?”

“Where?”

“There.”

His eyes followed my finger as I pointed out a suitably wavy line of stars. “Why is it called the snake?”

“It’s not called the snake. It is a snake.”

And then I told him about the snake. Usually I wasn’t very good at making up stories, but now it poured out of me. Maybe because Tom was sitting there in the crook of my arm, maybe because we were so far away from everything like television and entertainment that the caveman inside of me suddenly emerged, or maybe knowing that this was gonna be our life for three whole weeks gave me special powers.

“The snake lived in a rock crevice outside a small village,” I began, “and was such a devil, more evil than evil itself, hungrier than the hungriest. It ate everything, absolutely everything it could find. First it took the forest, then it took the crops. Then the kitchen gardens, the fruit, the vegetables, the berries, while it grew larger and larger. When it had eaten every single bush, every single tiny potato, yes, every single scruffy blade of grass in the field, it started eating people. Little kids for breakfast, grandmothers for lunch. It grew and grew; in the end it was so long and fat that it lay down in a circle around the village. And it lay there and gobbled up one person after the other. People ran into their houses, hid in the closets, under the beds and in the basements. But the snake found them, wriggled its way into every nook and ate them one after the other.”

I noticed that Tom was trembling in the crook of my arm and it wasn’t just from the cold. I held him tighter; he huddled up against me, as if he wanted to get inside me, reveling in horror and joy.

“Nobody knew what to do, the people were powerless. Now we’re going to die, they thought, now we’re going to be eaten. Everyone hid the best they could. Everyone except for one little boy.”

“Who was that?” His voice was low and excited.

“It was… It wasn’t just any little boy.”

“No?”

“He was actually a beekeeper.”

“Oh,” Tom said quickly, as if he were afraid to say anything else, afraid I would stop telling the story.

“He had a nice, big hive. With the best bee colony you’ve ever seen—loyal, hardworking, they never swarmed. The queen was living her third year, laying eggs like never before. And now he went out to the hive and opened it. And then he whispered inside and asked for their help.”

I took a dramatic pause. I knew the ending now and was quite pleased with it.

Tom waited. I let him wait. Noticed his eyes on me, round as saucers with expectation. I wanted to let him hold on to that feeling for a bit.

Finally he couldn’t take it anymore. “And then what?”

Slowly I continued.

“The bees listened, and the bees contemplated, while the hissing serpent drew closer to the boy.” Tom looked at me with his mouth open. “And just as the snake was about to gobble up the little boy, the bees appeared! A gigantic swarm flew straight at the snake. And they stung and stung, on its head, on its throat, on its tail, in the eyes, they stung it everywhere, until the snake couldn’t take anymore and crawled away as fast as it could.”

All the muscles in Tom’s body were still tense; he sat silent as the grave in the crook of my arm.

“And then everyone was saved?” he asked, almost inaudibly, afraid maybe to hear the answer.

I waited again, felt him tremble beneath me.

“Yes,” I said.

Tom exhaled.

“But the bees weren’t satisfied with that,” I continued.

“They weren’t?” He laughed a little now.

“They chased the snake further and further away.”

“Until it was gone?”

“Yes, completely gone.”

Finally Tom relaxed, his little body softened against my own.

“All the way up into the sky they chased it,” I said. “And there you can see the snake. To this day.”

Tom nodded, I could feel his head moving up and down against my arm.

“There it is,” I said. “And there”—I pointed a distance away—“there you have the hives.”

“There?”

“Yes, you see. There and there and there.” I drew three squares in the sky.

“What about the bees?”

“The bees?” I thought about it and then the answer came and I felt pretty darn brilliant. “They are the rest of the stars.”

This is how it’s gonna be, I thought. This is how we’ll pass the time for three full weeks. We went to bed and Tom fell asleep right away. I lay awake listening to his breath in the dark. He snored lightly, his nose was a little stuffed up. And he rolled over a few times in his sleeping bag before he settled down. And then I fell asleep, too.

But then the bear came. The first sound woke us up, a sharp bang when the pot over the fire fell to the ground. A hard shadow against the bees glittering in the sky. The sound of its paws trampling through the bushes, so close we could hear its fur bristling.

I hugged Tom, but my arm gave him no support now. His eyes were wide open, staring into the darkness.

We could hear the bear raiding the campsite. The plastic bag of marshmallows was torn to pieces. The wood I’d stacked so neatly was knocked over and we heard a hollow thumping against Styrofoam when its huge paws hit the cooler.

Then there was complete silence.

We just sat there. For a long time. I ruffled Tom’s hair, hoped he would turn his face towards me, look at me, but he just kept staring in front of him, into space. What could I say? What would Emma say? I had no idea, so I didn’t open my mouth. I pulled him even closer, but his body was stiff.

Finally I ventured outside.

The campsite was turned upside down. The marshmallows had been eaten, but the bear was gone.

It was only then that I dared to breathe properly.

I peeked into the tent.

“All clear.”

But Tom didn’t answer. Just sat there with that dark gaze, his mouth shut and his whole body immobilized. I picked him up and carried him to the car. The next day I put him on the bus home. There was no other option. Emma would meet him at the station. He didn’t complain about having to make the long trip alone. Until then that would have been out of the question.

Her voice became stern when I told her what had happened. I knew what she was thinking, although she didn’t say much more than yes and oh. You should have checked better, she thought, you should have looked into it properly, you should have known there were bears in the area. Just a tent canvas between the two of you and death, luckier than you deserved.

I saw his white face in the rear window when the bus drove away. The relief painted across his face, and his eyes, large and scared. He never came to Maine with me again.

Not until now.

The weather was still dry when we got into the car. Lee went his own way, said he was going home to send a letter of complaint about the electric fences.

Tom didn’t say a single word on the way back. Maybe he was looking for the bear, expecting it to storm out into the road in front of the car, slam its paw on the hood and maul the car body in two, plucking us out as if we were mice in a hole.

Once we were in the motel room, he quickly began packing his things, swept up his markers, tossed the book with Big Ben on the cover into his bag. I watched him.

“There’s no rush.”

“Might as well finish up,” he mumbled, again with his back to me.

It was only after he’d closed his bag that he looked at me. I’d sat down, pretended to be reading the newspaper.

He stood tall in the middle of the room, his hands dangling at his sides. He put them into his pockets, but took them out again. There was something in his eyes I couldn’t put my finger on.

“Yes?” I said finally.

He didn’t answer. Was definitely wrestling with something.

“All right, then.” I leaned over the newspaper again, tipped my head a little to the side, made a face, as if what I was reading was of particular interest.

“Why do you do it?” he asked suddenly.

I looked up.

“What? Do what?”

“Why do you drag them around with you like this?”

“Huh?”

“The bees.” He drew a breath. “You just lost three hives. Three bee colonies lost their homes.” His voice rose, his eyes widened, he crossed his arms over his chest as if he had to hang on to himself. “And just the business of carrying them back and forth in trucks. Do you really know what that does to them?”

The extreme seriousness in his young body. It was too much, made me want to laugh. And that’s just what I did. A grin spread across my lips, a coughing sound escaped my throat, but the laughter didn’t come out as genuine as I’d expected.

“Don’t you like blueberries?” I asked.

Something in him wavered. “Blueberries?”

I tried to hold my head high, preserve the grin, protect myself behind it. “There wouldn’t be many blueberries in Maine without bees.”

He swallowed. “I know that, Dad. But why are you taking part in the whole system? Farming, the way it’s become…”

I folded up the newspaper with broad gestures. Laid it on the table. Tried to keep my voice calm, not yell.

“If you were Gareth’s son, I could understand what you’re talking about. But I don’t operate the way he does.”

“I thought you wanted to be like him?”

“Be like Gareth?”

“I know you want to expand.”

He said it simply, not like a question. Not an accusation, although that’s what it was.

I laughed again. A hollow laugh. “And I’ve signed us up for the golf club. And invested in a brass manufacturer.”

“What?”

“No. Nothing.”

He sighed from his stomach. Then he turned his gaze away from me, towards the window. The weather was still good out there.

“Think I’ll take that walk now,” he said without giving me another look.

Then he left.

My entire plan walked out the banged-up door of the motel room.