was another way to push our feelings to a far place where we couldn’t access them, or even know that we should have them. We learned how to keep going, and to keep quiet.
Grandpa took Matthew and me with him to Big Sur every chance he could, and brought both of us into the honey bus during harvest season. As I got older, I detected a more serious undertone to his hive lessons—a gentle prodding to think beyond Via Contenta and to consider what we wanted, instead of what Mom needed. He spoke in metaphors, using the bees as examples of the proper way to behave. What he found noble and admirable in the way bees lived translated into his moral code for humankind, and in his subtle way, he encouraged us to embrace, rather than recede from, life. He reminded us that bees live for a purpose far grander than themselves, each of their small contributions combining to create collective strength. Rather than withdrawing from the daunting task of living, as our mother had done, honeybees make themselves essential through their generosity. By giving more than they took, bees ensured their survival and reached what might be considered a state of grace.
One summer morning Grandpa and I took the back way to his Big Sur hives, sloshing through Garrapata Creek and chugging over an abandoned logging road because he was tired of going the easy way through the eucalyptus and redwood groves of Palo Colorado Canyon Road. This off-road route was more exciting, because it was quite possible we could get the truck stuck in a ditch.
Branches of bay leaf and poison oak scraped our windows as he four-wheeled through the thicket, and poor Rita shot out from her bed beneath his seat and hopped into my lap. I wrapped my arm around her trembling body and pulled her close. Our tires slipped on the dirt lane that was slick in places where spring water seeped out of the mountainside, and we bounced over a small rock slide that had tumbled down and scattered across our path. We managed to make it this time without getting stuck and having to call one of the Trotter brothers to rescue us with the winch.
As Grandpa got his gear out of the back of the truck, Rita and I headed for the creek to go hunt for tracks and scents left behind by animals. I was hoping to get lucky and find another keepsake, like that time I found a snakeskin.
When Grandpa was ready for my help, he whistled and the sound reverberated down the canyon. I stood up from some raccoon paw prints I was inspecting, and jogged back to the apiary. I put on the veil and Grandpa handed me the smoker. I sent a few puffs into the bottom entrance of the first hive, and the guard bees scurried back inside. Grandpa pried up the inner cover, and I heard the propolis seal give way with a sticky crack, exposing the ten hanging honeycomb frames inside the box.
The bees aligned themselves in rows in the open space between each honeycomb frame—each narrow gap precisely designed to be three-eighths of an inch to permit bee passage, but prevent the bees from building wax bridges and fuse the honeycomb sheets together. They poked just their heads above the top bars of the frames, to see who was breaking into their house. Their black heads all lined up looked like little shiny beans.
We waited a moment for the bees to adjust to the sudden loss of their roof. They stared at us cautiously, then a few brave ones broke ranks and crawled up to the top bars of the frames to swivel their antennae and assess the situation. It took only a second or two before they decided the threat was over, relayed the information to the other bees, and all of them began moving again, returning to work and ignoring Grandpa and me. Grandpa lifted the first honeycomb frame out, loaded down on both sides with bees, and gave it to me to hold so he could loosen the next frame.
By now I could hold a frame covered in bees and differentiate their individual job titles just by watching their behavior. I saw some housekeepers cleaning crystalized bits of honey from hexagon cells and receiver bees storing nectar in others, and builders repairing cracks in the wax comb. But my attention was drawn to one corner of the frame, where a