The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin (free ereaders txt) 📗

they were known as callow bees, was clean up the cell they were born in. Then they started taking care of the other baby bees, feeding them and capping the larvae cells and helping other newly emerging callow bees learn how to contribute to the hive. She told Jake how workers got promoted up the ladder as they got older, moving toward the front door to receive nectar and pollen from the bees that flew around collecting out in the field; those were called foragers. Some workers eventually graduated to foraging or became guard bees, she explained. Guard bees kept watch at the entrance and only let in the other bees that belonged there.

“How do they know?” Jake asked. “Who’s who, I mean?”

They knew by the scent, Alice told him. As long as the queen was healthy and laying eggs, her pheromone kept them all united. If they had any worry, they would immediately stop what they were doing and expose the Nasonov gland in their abdomens, passing a distinctive lemony scent from bee to bee. The bees that foraged carried that smell with them and brought it back to the hive. The scent allowed the guard bees to identify them as residents and not robbers.

“What do you mean? They rob each other?”

She nodded. “Bees from hungry hives will steal honey, so everyone gets checked at the front door. Yellow jackets try to get in too. They’ll actually eat the larvae and eggs—carnivorous little bastards.”

Whoops! she thought. Language! She glanced at her watch. How long had they been sitting there? She felt anxious to get the boy home.

The buzzing had died down, and few bees remained in the air.

“Almost done. As done as they are going to get, anyway.”

Alice stood up, brushed off the seat of her overalls, and turned toward the truck. She didn’t want the boy to see her face. It upset her to think about losing even one bee.

She shivered, feeling the sudden drop in temperature that was common on April nights like this one. She turned to face Jake and the problem of getting him up, choosing, as she usually did, to be direct.

“Well, all right, then,” she said. “Tell me how to help you get up and I’ll drive you home.”

Jake explained how to position the wheelchair with the brake on and then he pulled himself up into it. Alice moved to help him but stopped when she saw that he was clearly able to manage it. He lifted his rear into the seat and then used both hands to lift each leg and place his feet on the foot rail. He looked down at the dark, uneven ground and hesitated. Alice sensed his embarrassment.

“Look,” she said, “I’m going to push you over to the truck. Humor a nervous lady, okay?”

He gave a shrug of acquiescence but didn’t meet her gaze.

Alice maneuvered him next to the truck and opened the door. Her cab, as usual, was a mess. Flustered, she threw a pile of papers and books into the back seat to make room. Then she stood aside and watched the boy evaluate the space. When she asked if she could help, he shook his head. Jake maneuvered knees first into the truck door. He lifted his feet, one at a time, onto the floor of the cab. Then, with the precision of a rock climber, he reached in and gained opposing handholds on the seat and the door handle and pulled himself up and in.

Jake sat back, and Alice could see he was sweating from the effort. She handed him his backpack, and he explained how to fold the chair. It was lighter than she expected, and she secured it in the back of the truck with a strap. She slid behind the wheel and glanced over at Jake, who was scanning the dark sky.

“Looks like you were right. I don’t see any more out there.”

Alice nodded but didn’t say anything. She thought about the still, golden bodies she’d seen strewn alongside the road.

“Okay, then. Where to?”

“Greenwood Court. Over behind NAPA Auto,” he said.

“Are you kidding me? Good Lord! Just out on a ten-mile spin?” She shook her head with admiration and saw him hide a smile.

She turned the key, and Bruce Springsteen’s voice roared through the cab: “Oh, oh, oh, oh! Thunder Road!”

“Jesus!” she yelled, and snapped off the stereo. She felt a cold sweat spring up on her face and hands.

The boy threw back his head and hooted with laughter. “No wonder you didn’t see me, Alice,” he said. “Rocking out to the Boss! And you have a tape deck! That is so awesome!”

He clapped his hands together, and Alice let herself smile, catching her breath. He spotted her collection of tapes in the center console.

“May I?” he asked.

“Knock yourself out,” she said, and drove toward town as he dug through the cassettes. She turned the stereo back on with the volume down low.

“Let’s see . . . Bob Dylan. Classic. The Fixx. Passable. Of course, their only good album was Reach the Beach. And here we have— Holy hell, Alice. Phil Collins? This is criminal. Too tragic! You’d better just let me out here.”

They were at a stoplight, and he pretended to open the door.

“Genesis is perfectly respectable!” she protested. “I don’t know how his solo stuff got in here!”

“Really. I’m embarrassed for you, Alice.”

What a little smartass! She leaned against the steering wheel and laughed. When was the last time she had laughed?

He was accusing her of harboring a secret cache of Madonna as she turned onto Greenwood Court, but then his smile disappeared. She slowed down on the bumpy driveway and passed a ceramic donkey with crumbling legs and a basket of tattered plastic flowers. The ruined donkey depressed Alice for some reason.

“You can just let me out here,” Jake said in a low voice.

In front of a blue manufactured home, Alice’s headlights lit upon a woman’s legs and then her crossed arms and anxious face. She turned off the engine. “That