Telling the Bees Read Online Free PDF

less.”
    I told him then as succinctly as I could that I did not know the precise reason for the bees’ entry into the Straussmans’ house, per se, but it seemed to me the natural rhythm of their precisely ordered world clearly had been disturbed.

Four
    D WINDLING: The dying off of old bees in the spring, sometimes called spring dwindling or the disappearing disease.
    T hough I found myself surprisingly agitated at the thought of abandoning my former friends, I reluctantly allowed myself at this time to be ushered onto the Straussmans’ front porch where Detective Grayson solicited additional information from me about the nature of my relationship with the Straussman sisters. I told him that I’d known them all my life, that my parents had moved to this area from Oregon more than seventy years before, and that we—the Straussman sisters, my sister and myself—had all grown up together.
    I do not recall the exact progression of our discourse, but I believe it moved at some point from the friendship Claire and I once shared to Aristotle’s observations on the general nature of bees and how he was able, through this particular manner of philosophic extrapolation, to glean some further insight into the nature of man.
    I, of course, hold no such lofty philosophic conceits. But I did tell the detective that through years of careful observation I have been able to discern quite clearly when my bees are hungry or when they are cold. Through a nuanced pattern of motion and sound, my bees signal just as plainly to me when there’s an abundance of honey to be harvested from the hive or when they are set to swarm. Indeed, my bees tell me when a new queen has been born, and though I’ve gotten more than a few painful stings over the years, I’ve learned to judge by the tone and pitch of their buzz whether they’re glad to see me or if they are on the other hand offended by the smell of a new pair of woolen gloves I am wearing or off-put by the color of my jacket.
    “I remember in particular the fuss I stirred up among my hives the time I wore a purple velvet jacket.”
    I explained to Detective Grayson that I would never have chosen this color or fabric on my own, but one of my honey customers, a young woman with something of an ethereal nature, had presented me with this particular jacket as a thank-you present for helping her to start a bee colony of her own.
    “You look like someone who could have worn this in a past life,” she’d said. Beaming like a courtesan, she’d reached up to help me into the jacket, and, not wanting to hurt her feelings, I had thanked her heartily and waved good-bye, with her watching all the way as I headed out to my number one hive. This is how I discovered that my bees did not like purple, I told the good detective. “Before I could take the offending jacket off, I received three, perhaps four, bee stings.”
    “What’s your point, Mr. Honig?” Detective Grayson said, flipping his notebook closed and slipping it and his pen back into his jacket pocket.
    My point was that bees are extraordinary creatures.
    “Did you know that the ancient Egyptians revered honeybees, believing that they were born from the tears of the sun god, Ra?”
    “I can’t say that I did,” Detective Grayson replied, glancing back toward the front door where the attendants stood poised to wheel out the first of the two steel gurneys bearing the Straussman sisters’ remains.
    Before I had the chance to elaborate on the mythic significance of bees to Egyptian civilization, the detective thanked me rather perfunctorily for what assistance I had been able to provide and called one of his junior officers over to show me to my home just as the Straussmans’ front door swung open and the shorter of the two coroner assistants nosed the first gurney out onto the Straussmans’ front porch. I assumed it was Claire who was zipped into the black body bag as the straps on the gurney were notched tight with plenty to