“Do you know what you’re doing?” The beekeeper looked at her, trying to ignore her shape in a beesuit. Tight gathering at the waist. Makeshift belt with hanging beekeeping tools, a thick string with knotted loops. Penny answered, “not really; I thought it time to try. I’ve watched you so often.” The beehive at the bottom of Penny’s garden had been in place some weeks, ever since a swarm arrived in her chimney. A tall, wiry beekeeper had dealt with it.

The plan had been that the bees would be moved elsewhere. Unawares, she’d found random reasons why they should stay a little longer. Mr Westerham kept coming back. Sweating, she was shoving the thin metal edge of her hive tool under the hive roof to loosen it. She’d seen him do this many times. From afar it hadn’t looked hard. Despite her new, impenetrable beesuit she felt less confident than expected. She prodded at the propolis seal bees had worked into the gap. It was hard to break. Her special gloves were too big; their rubberised layer stopped her fingers moving properly. She shoved harder and heard the cracking sound of propolis coming away from the two surfaces it glued together. She loosened the hive’s roof and beaming, dropped the tool to grasp and lift off the roof with both hands. 

“Oh,” she whispered, stepping foot to foot, looking about, blank: what should happen next? He reached over, took the roof, leant into her warmth, sensing her worry. He put the roof against the hive stand and stepped back, saying “now do the same with the crown board, it’s much easier.” Then he turned and walked away. “Yes” she said, “crown board,” watching his long lean strides move up the garden. She pried off the thin wooden layer sitting between roof and bees, and put it on the ground.

She was in the breath of thousands of honey bees, the complex mingling of propolis, honey, pollen. Now beesuited, Mr Westerham was back, peering over her shoulder into the hive, his scent blending with the bees’. In unexpected light the bees were momentarily agitated. Their sound rose loud and a little angry before settling slowly back to a steady hum. “What next?” she said as he drew in closer. He took her hive tool in hand, stretching for the first of several frames hanging in the hive’s top box. As he reached over she felt herself pulled slightly closer to him as the tool on her belt rose up. She breathed a drowsing blend, exhilarating yet soporific. His hand on hers guided the tool to loosen the frame as he whispered “you can take one side, I’ll get the other.” Together they lifted the frame, heavy with summer’s honey. Her small warm gasp. They two, holding a full frame of honey, watching bees calm and busily shaping spaces for winter stores and new bees. He found himself held still in a space he didn’t quite recognise, beekeeper or not.