Telling the Bees Read Online Free PDF Page A

most meager culinary efforts.
    “Any family at all?”
    “None to speak of.”
    We were interrupted, just then, by a string of curses erupting from the back of the house, and I turned to watch two coroner’s attendants roll a pair of steel gurneys down the long hallway from the kitchen to the parlor.
    “What the Sam Hill?” Detective Grayson fairly barked at the young men.
    “
Gosh durned
bees!” the taller of the two attendants exclaimed, pointing to a small cluster of bees in the hallway, except that he didn’t say gosh durned, and I felt my cheeks redden at the sound of the Lord’s name being taken in vain. Though I no longer attend church as regularly as I did when my dear mother walked this earth, I do believe there is a common decency that should be observed in the avoidance of vulgar epithets.
    “There’s a
flaming
swarm back there in the hallway,” the first one added, more or less.
    Observing my discomfort at what they really said, the good detective intervened.
    “Watch your language, son,” he said sharply.
    “Bees are upset by coarse language,” I agreed, and as if to prove my point one of the bees broke away from the cluster to hover skittishly above the nearer of the two attendants. When he tried to swat it away, it drove its stinger defensively into the back of his hand.
    “Don’t pull it out,” I said. I kept my voice low and calm as the young man yelped and flailed about in circles. “Use a knife blade or your fingernail to scrape the stinger off.”
    Both the attendants and the detective looked at me as if I had grown an extra head.
    “Plucking it out only releases more venom into the wound,” I tried to explain as the young man continued to worry the offending barb with his forefinger. “Some Mrs. Stewart’s Liquid Bluing rubbed on the sting helps to relieve the pain. I’m fairly certain the Straussmans have some on hand—in the pantry, just to the right of the kitchen. Or if not, swabbing on some Clorox helps, or even table salt. I’m also told meat tenderizer contains an enzyme that neutralizes the irritant in the sting, but I have yet to try this remedy myself.”
    “
Jiminy
, there’s more of the little
flamers
on the window over there,” the shorter of the two attendants shouted before shrugging apologetically in my direction. “And there, on the mantle!”
    “Keep your voice down, and try not to move suddenly,” I instructed. “Bees will not sting unless they are frightened or offended. Loud noise and sudden motion both frighten and offend them.”
    A large drone flew out from the fireplace and lit on Claire Straussman’s skirt just then.
    “You seem to know a thing or two about bees,” the detective said to me. “What do you make of this?”
    By this, I assumed he meant the growing number of bees gathering in the Straussmans’ parlor, as he did not appear to be well enough schooled in apian habits to find the appearance of a solitary drone outside the hive odd, in and of itself.
    “The bees seem to be coming into the house through the chimney,” I said as another pair of field bees entered the parlor in just this manner.
    “I can see that,” the detective replied, a terseness creeping into his voice that surprised me. “What I’m asking is, why?”
    “In my experience,” I replied, “I have found that bees are generally forthright, intelligent creatures. It’s not in their nature to offer false testament any more than it would be natural for a worker and a drone to mate or a queen to leave the hive to gather pollen. While I might not readily understand their actions or intentions in certain situations, that has always been my shortcoming, not theirs.”
    Detective Grayson had meanwhile begun to reflexively click his ballpoint pen open and shut in what I could only read as irritation. I wondered what about my measured response had so offended him. As if reading my mind, he repeated his question.
    “This time,” he added, “in twenty-five words or