The Honey Bus - Meredith May Page 0,32

underneath. It was a masterpiece of mathematical symmetry. The interlocking hexagonal tubes were aligned in straight rows, every cell sharing one wall with six of its neighbors for economy of space and wax. To fight the laws of gravity, Grandpa explained, each honeycomb cell was slightly tilted upward a few degrees to keep the honey from spilling out. It was as if the bees knew that of the three shapes that can stack without creating wasted space—squares, equilateral triangles and hexagons—the hexagon uses the least amount of material for the largest storage room, thus saving on labor and supplies.

I reached with my fingertips to feel the geometry. The stacked configuration made the wax sturdy enough to hold several pounds of honey in one sheet of honeycomb, but the wax itself was pliable and crushed under my fingertip. Some of the cavities held gleaming honey, others small plugs of bright yellow and orange and reds where the bees had stored pollen grains. Grandpa turned the frame from side to side to examine it, bringing it so close to his face that his veil nearly brushed the bees.

“See the queen?” I asked.

Grandpa put the frame down on its side and propped it against another hive. The bees stayed on it, continuing to make their rounds on the honeycomb as if they didn’t even realize that they had been ejected from their own home.

“Nah, this one is full of food, no place for her to lay an egg. She’ll be in the middle somewhere, where it’s warmer.”

Some of the bees were now overflowing down the sides of the hive like a spreading stain. Instinctively, I took a step back.

“Okay, smoke ’em,” Grandpa said.

I pointed the snout of the smoker over the remaining nine frames in the hive and squeezed the folding bellows once. One white cloud puffed out.

“Keep doing it. More. Lots more,” Grandpa said.

I sent a storm of smoke clouds over the frames. The fumes had a wet cigar smell that tricked the bees into thinking their hive was on fire, sending them down into the hive to gobble honey before they fled their burning home. With full stomachs, Grandpa said, it made it harder for them to bend their bodies into stinging position.

When I had smoked most of the bees off the top bars of the hive, he lifted a second frame out. Grandpa worked barehanded because he said he’d been stung so much it didn’t bother him anymore. He swore all that venom prevented his joints from stiffening up with arthritis like Granny’s.

He inspected two more frames, returned them to the box and lifted out another. Then he bent down on one knee and held the frame out to me so I could see.

“Look here, where I’m pointing.”

I let out a small gasp. The queen was so obviously the queen. She was elegantly tapered, twice the size of all the other bees, and with longer legs that looked like they belonged on a spider. Her abdomen was so heavy with eggs that it dragged behind her as she walked.

Like bodyguards parting a crowd for a pop star, an entourage of attendant bees formed a protective circle around her and cleared a path as she moved. She rushed across the honeycomb like she was late for something. Her royalty was apparent in the way the other bees grew visibly excited when she came near, rushing up to caress her with their antennae, some even wrapping their forearms around her head in what looked like an embrace. Curiously, none of the bees turned its back on her. As she moved about, each new group of bees she approached rearranged themselves to face inward, even backing up before her to keep their eyes and antennae focused on her every move. The only word for their behavior was worship.

“Why do they touch her like that?”

“They are gathering her special scent and passing it to the rest of the bees,” Grandpa said. “That’s how they know which hive is theirs. Every queen has her own smell. Her daughters never forget it.”

It’s true mothers have an aroma. Mine smelled like Charlie perfume and Vantage cigarettes, mixed with the faint musk of other people’s clothes from the church thrift shop. It was a unique scent that I recognized instantly whenever I climbed into bed. I thought of Mom at that moment, passing the hours in bed. I wished she could see this queen, how an insect was so perfectly designed to be a mother, how the queen