The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows - Olivia Waite Page 0,18
the queen had gone, and a few other insects were marching determinedly across the sheet, following the scents of honey and home.
Penelope stood and met Mrs. Griffin’s wide-eyed gaze through the muslin of her veil. “That’s the heart of it. Now we just do the same thing a few more times.”
Mrs. Griffin’s eyebrows rose and she breathed out a little laugh. “Oh, is that all?”
Penelope was puzzled by the astonishment in the printer’s tone. It seemed out of all proportion with the ordinariness of the job. “Yes, that’s about it. Not terribly complicated, I suppose.”
Mrs. Griffin made a helpless noise in the back of her throat, and leaned against the wall at her back.
Penelope cut down and moved the other three pieces of comb, as Mrs. Griffin watched and fidgeted at the end of the aisle. A few times Reggie Downes came back to murmur some question, and once Sam Ashton came back simply to watch; Mrs. Griffin tolerated the boy for fully five minutes before shooing him back to his duties.
When all the pieces of comb were safely hanging within the skep hive, Penelope delicately scooped up the remaining bees from the sheet and poured them gently along the top bars. The queen had already made it back onto one of the combs, she saw with a smile. The smaller skep lid, once settled, closed off the hive and protected it.
“Now we just give it a little while for the stragglers to find their way,” Penelope said, stripping off her gloves and lifting her veil away from her face.
The light had shifted into mid-afternoon richness, and Mrs. Griffin moved nearer to peer interestedly at the skep. “What will you do with the hive?” the printer asked.
“Well, my own garden is not large enough to support more hives than I already have.” Penelope’s smile widened. “So I thought you might keep it.”
Mrs. Griffin’s gaze was a lance.
Penelope tugged her gloves off and tucked them into her coat pockets. “Normally I’d offer it to one of the local families, but it’s been a very strong year for swarms, and I don’t know anyone with hives standing empty at the moment. And the bees chose this spot, so there must be things they like within foraging distance—and when it comes to flowers and forage, you’ll find that bees know best.”
Mrs. Griffin cast a helpless glance around the shelves in the warehouse. “You can’t be suggesting I keep them here?”
She sounded appalled. Penelope took pity. “Well, not indoors, of course—but maybe out against the back wall? They would be snug as houses, up against the brick with a bit of roof to protect them from the rain.”
Mrs. Griffin swallowed. “I’m not sure I have the constitution to . . . do what you’ve done today.” A wave of her hand indicated the sheet, still spotted with a few disoriented bees.
“Oh!” Penelope shook her head. “It’s not like this usually—rehiving is a very particular thing, and something of a specialty of mine. Most of the work with bees is just watching and waiting: check to make sure they’re building honeycomb right, check to make sure you don’t have pests, check to make sure no one has knocked over a hive. A lot of people set children to tending them, for the day-to-day.”
Mrs. Griffin pursed her lips, weighing this new information. “My apprentices have their own work—and I am in London most days . . .”
Penelope shrugged. “If that’s all that’s stopping you, I could keep an eye on the colony and let you know when something needs doing.”
“You would?”
“Of course! It’s very little trouble—I only have four colonies of my own, you see, so it leaves me plenty of time to look in on a lot of the other hives in and around Melliton. Make sure all the bees are thriving, help out whenever there’s chalkbrood or wax moths, show new beekeepers how to harvest honey and wax.”
Mrs. Griffin was staring at her as if she’d started speaking some mystical language other than English. “What would I owe you? Why would you go to such trouble for me?”
Penelope chuckled, even though something about the tenor of the question made a part of her ache with sympathy. Imagine having to question why someone might offer you a kindness. “Not for you, Mrs. Griffin—we’ve only just met. I’d do it for the bees, though.”
“Because you care about the bees.” That said carefully, as though Mrs. Griffin expected it to be instantly contradicted.