The Wedding Bees Read Online Free PDF Page B

matching bench and a couple of slatted foldaway chairs.
    â€œThe things we can do here,” Sugar said, crouching down close to the handful of bees buzzing around the cooler. “Then there’s the park just around the corner, and the East River Park about three blocks that way plus there’s Washington Square Park to the west and, not that much farther, Union Square. I mean, can you believe it, Elizabeth? Union Square!”
    She always talked to her bees but it was more important than ever when they were in a new home because they needed to know that the air might smell different but Sugar was there, same as the gardenias, same as the birdbath, same as always.
    She lifted the top two empty boxes off the beehive, leaving just the bottom brood box containing ten empty honeycomb frames hanging like files in a cabinet drawer.
    This is where Elizabeth the Sixth would start laying her new kingdom.
    â€œSorry, girls, I know this isn’t your favorite part,” she said, taking the miniature frames the bees were clinging to out of the cooler and gently shaking them down into the larger honeycomb files.
    â€œYou go, Betty. Tell them it’s business as usual. Just a little higher off the ground is all.”
    She replaced the top stacks, which held more empty frames waiting for the season’s honey deposits, and put the lid back on. Then she swiped a leaf from the gardenia and wedged it carefully in front of the hive’s opening on the bottom level, so that the bees could still get in and out but would have to think twice about it, giving them more time to get their bearings.
    â€œTheo Fitzgerald,” she said, still trying to shake off the night’s uninvited visitor. “I mean, really!” The shake turned into yet another shiver, the sort usually inspired by a particularly wicked mouthful of very rich, supersmooth, utterly sinful ice cream.

6 TH
    T he next day there was still no sign of Sugar’s 5A neighbor, although the window boxes had been rearranged overnight, the mint harvested and Thai basil planted in its place. Again, the window was open and the heavenly scent of something deliciously cakelike was swirling around the rooftop.
    â€œSure smells good out here this morning,” Sugar said louder than strictly necessary.
    It was making her hungry. And the bees too, by the look of things. They’d eaten all the sugar syrup she’d put in their hive-top feeder the day before to give them some get-up-and-go while their numbers were building up.
    And now she was out of sugar.
    There was a big glossy market only a few blocks away, and a smaller convenience store closer by, but Sugar had made a lifetime of friends by not going to glossy markets or nearby convenience stores. She still got letters from them every single day.
    And she might be in New York now, but that was no excuse not to do the exact same thing she would do if she were in Pittston or Truckee: knock on a door and ask for a cup of something.
    She knew 5A must have sugar because of the tantalizing baking smells emanating from within, and she thought she heard someone shuffling on the other side of the door when she knocked, but no one answered.
    Iffy, she thought again. Definitely iffy.
    The door of Apartment 4 was painted bright green and was opened by a stocky little man of around seventy bearing an alarming shock of dyed orange hair.
    â€œWhatever you’re selling I won’t be buying any,” he said, “so you can feck right off.”
    â€œGood morning to you too, sir, I’m not selling a single thing,” Sugar said, unfazed. “My name is Sugar Wallace and I’ve just moved in upstairs. I know it’s an imposition but I wonder if you could spare a cup of sugar?”
    The stocky little man peered at her, a deep suspicion rippling across his wrinkled face. “Did she put you up to this, that poxy feckin’ she-devil? Did she?”
    â€œNo, sir, no one put me up to