The other day in the college cafeteria Judith was bellyaching about a lousy grade.
“It’s just a stupid test,” a classmate replied, but the mollifying tone only set Judith off on an acerbic rant.
“Now,” the classmate shot back, “you’re beginning to remind me of one of those morbid Victorian characters… Jude the Obscure.” After a brief pause she added, “Make that Judith the Obscure.”
A flurry of hoots and jeers swept through the dining room. Judith blanched then turned ten shades of burgundy. Her lower lip trembled but she let the caustic critique pass without further commentary. The girl who offered up the clever repartee wasn’t a smart aleck. Nothing mean-spirited was concealed in her words. Truth be told, Judith was a chronic malcontent, worrywart – a diehard fatalist who stumbled through life in a chronic state of high anxiety.
Jude the Obscure, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native - Judith Nussbaum, aka Judith the Obscure, had slogged through all of Hardy’s major works. Each ended badly. She could relate to the author’s bleak weltanschauung. Life was unpredictable, iffy, dicey, an existential crapshoot at best – an interminable progression of impending calamities. And yet, wasn’t all that world-class literature supposed to illuminate higher truths not muddle and befuddle?
Recently, Judith had begun indulging a bizarre fantasy. In her adolescent dreamscape she dropped out of college and moved to a rooming house. She took a job that just barely paid the rent and lived a Spartan, no-frills existence. Conspicuous consumption be damned, she sold her Honda Civic in favor of a three-speed bike. A work in progress, Judith had been embellishing the minimalist tapestry of her goofy fantasy for the better part of a month. In one bathetic encounter her parents visited her at the rooming house.
“This is a life?” her father threw his stubby arms out in a despairing gesture.
“Come home,” her mother begged her weary voice numb with grief. “All is forgiven.”
“I wasn’t aware of having committed a crime,” Judith replied.
Mr. Nussbaum removed his glasses and massaged his eyes. “Humiliating your parents should be a punishable offense.”
“Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba b'almadi -v'ra chirutei, v'yamlich malchutei b'chayeichon.” Near the end of the bizarre scenario her father began reciting the Jewish prayer for the dead.
At a deeper level Judith understood that the maudlin melodrama was just that – so much Walter Mitty, self-indulgence. What was missing from her life was an all-consuming passion, fervor on the scale of Don Quixote flailing at windmills or Ahab pursuing his white whale.
* * * * *
“Wanna sandwich?” Later that night, Mr. Nussbaum was fixing a late night snack. His wife had purchased a panini maker when the gadgets were popular the previous spring, but Mr. Nussbaum commandeered the electric gizmo and now boasted a half dozen, gourmet sandwiches – Reubens with sauerkraut and Russian dressing, grilled cheese and tomato, turkey with cranberry sauce and a honey mustard sauce - he could whip up from scratch.
“Not hungry.” Judith slid into a chair at the kitchen table. Her father lowered havarti cheese on top of a slice of pumpernickel bread then added several layers of chipotle-spiced chicken.
“The white man’s fly,” Francine ventured, “Ever heard the term?”
Mr. Nussbaum brushed the marbled bread with olive oil. Laying the sandwich on the grill, he lowered the metal arm. “Can’t say as I have. Enlighten me.”
“It’s what Native Americans called the honey bees.”
“A peculiar choice of language.” Mr. Nussbaum peeked under the grill and lowered the lid.
“Before the settler’s arrival, honey bees were unknown to Native Americans. In his memoirs, Thomas Jefferson wrote that honey bees were called white man's flies, because they were associated with the arrival of Europeans.”
“Imagine that!” When the sandwich was done, Mr. Nussbaum cracked open the grill, nudged the food onto a plate and came to join her at the table.
“The Indians noticed that, whenever colonies of honey bees appeared, white settlers were seldom far behind.”
“Where did you learn all this?”
“It’s not important” Judith deflected the question. “On the trip across the Atlantic, colonists brought the bees, along with sheep, cows and chickens. Once here, the bees were able to increase their range by migrating into new territory. By 1776 when they signed the Declaration of Independence, honey bees had swarmed their way into Michigan. In the next twenty years, they made their way to Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin.”
Mr. Nussbaum looked up abruptly “Any potato salad in the fridge?” He had hardly heard a thing his daughter said.
* * * * *
The rest of the summer months passed in a humid, sun-drenched fog. Early September Judith visited the Brandenburg police station. “I called to report a swarm of bees”
“Recently?”
“No, two months ago.” The officer behind the desk stared at the girl opaquely. “I need to contact the woman who came to our house.”
“You got another situation?”
Judith shook her head. “Just wanted to inquire how the bees were doing.”
The officer frowned. “It’s a bit unusual.”
“Francine… Francine Franklin,” Judith sputtered. “That was the beekeeper’s name.”
The officer crooked his head to one side and his face assumed an even more disagreeable expression. Drumming his fingers on the desktop for an interminable period, he finally scribbled a handful of digits on a slip of paper and pushed it across the desk toward her. “Anything else?”
“No, nothing.” Judith smiled thinly and hurried away.
In the parking lot, she dialed the number from her cell phone. “I was wondering if I might stop by to visit with the bees.”
At face value, it seemed like a silly thing to say, but Francine seemed genuinely pleased to hear the young girl’s voice. “They’re a very sociable bunch. The girls will be thrilled to see you again.”
The beekeeper lived on Marlin Ave, three miles south of the center of town in a rundown section of three-decker tenements and shabby bungalows. A propane tank pitted with rust rested on a concrete slab alongside a row of weathered shingles tilted at a cockeyed angle where several nails had torn loose. A large contingent of Hmong refugees settled the area in the late sixties as the Vietnam War wound down. In recent years, a wave of coffee-colored Hispanics and Haitians also filtered into the community.
Francine showed her into the back yard and indicated a long wooden box with a cinder block holding the plywood lid in place. The older woman grinned good-naturedly. “There’re your bees.”
A steady stream of workers flooded from the hive opening. The aerial traffic reminded Judith of Grand Central Station during rush hour. Many returning bees were weighed down with saddlebags of pearl-colored pollen, causing them, like B-52 bombers still loaded down with heavy weaponry, to drunkenly miss their mark as they glided toward the landing ramp.
“Most of the pollen you see coming in is Clethra…sweet pepper bush.” Francine pointed at a small shrub with white blossoms near a ramshackle shed. “It’s a rich source of protein for developing brood, but, unfortunately, most wildflowers are all played out this late in the season and there won’t be any decent forage until the ragweed… goldenrod blooms.”
“When does that happen?”
Francine rubbed her wide jaw. “Middle of September, I reckon.” Her weathered featured scrunched in a thoughtful expression. “Of course, asters can also bloom late into the season, but that don’t amount to a hill of beans.”
Judith watched a bee loaded down with ivory saddle bags lumbering toward the hive. “That’s still a good month away.”
Francine dropped down on her haunches and loosened the latches on a wooden shutter that ran the length of the hive. Behind the hinged panel an observation window was recessed int
o the side wall.
Judith stuck her nose up against the glass. The hive’s interior overflowed with inch-thick honey combs that stretched from the roof of the structure to the floor. All interior surfaces were carpeted with bees. Bees, bees and more bees – a myriad of industrious insects. On the outermost comb they had assembled a teardrop-shape scaffold, each honeybee building out a tiny segment of the burgeoning, wax structure. Near the center a chain of bees dangled precariously upside-down, each insect gripping the hind legs of the insect below. “Brood is situated here in the front.” Francine rapped the top of the box with arthritic knuckles. “Stores of pollen and nectar extend up to the midpoint. Everything on back to the rear is pure honey the colony will need to survive the winter.”
The image of the bustling colony scattered about the inside of the hive was seared into Judith’s brain. “They figured everything.”
““At times,” Francine shot back dryly, “it seems the insects possess a better handle on life than we do.” She led the way to the rickety shed. In the far corner, a mishmash of Langstroth hive boxes in varying states of disrepair was stacked to the ceiling. A stationary belt sander and drill press lay buried under piles of hive tools and orangey frames impregnated with wax foundations. The woman raised the blade on a Ryobi, ten-inch table saw and set the rip fence within a fraction of the blade.
“What are you doing?”
Francine removed her hand momentarily from the power switch. “Bees draw out comb to different specification depending on what they’re using it for. Brood comb is relatively thin. Honey combs toward the rear tend to be much thicker. I place quarter-inch spacers between the bars so they have a tad more room to work with building those thicker honeycombs.” Reaching for a pine board, Francine flipped the switch. The motor fired up with a sharp whine and the carbide-tipped blade dissolved in a dull blur. She sliced a dozen strips. A blizzard of blond, feathery-light sawdust flew up in their faces as the board was reduced to a thin sliver.
When they finished installing the spacers, Francine said, “Remember what I told you about ragweed?”
“The weeds won’t bloom for another few weeks yet and the bees could go hungry.”
Francine led the way into the house. From a kitchen drawer she removed a small packet of dried petals and stems, which she sprinkled in a bowl. “Flowers of chamomile, dandelion, valerian, stinging nettle and oak bark.” she transferred a teaspoonful into a metal tea infuser and lowered the content into a pan of water heating on the stove. Twenty minutes later when the brew sufficiently cooled, she added three cups of sugar and poured the syrupy mix into a Ziploc storage bag. “It’s a strengthening tea with vitamins insects benefit from when foraging in the wild. Sugar is a poor substitute for the nectar, but it’ll tide them over until the ragweed blooms.”
In the yard Francine removed a half dozen topbars at the rear of the hive and slid the plump sack into the hive. With a razor she poked slits in the top of the plastic. A few drops of gooey slush oozed out, but the bag retained the bulk of the liquid nourishment. Within seconds, the bag was rimmed with hungry bees, their stringy tongues fully extended toward the droplets of sweet broth that leaked from the plastic. “By tomorrow morning every drop will be gone,” Francine observed, “and the plastic bag will lie flat as a pancake.”
* * * * *
Later that night, Judith’s sister, Sophie dropped by for a visit. The parents were away at the casino again. A dark-haired vixen with a pert figure and equally sassy personality, she threw herself down on the bed. “I went to see the honeybees today,” Judith announced.”
“What bees?”
“From the swarm earlier this summer.”
“I don’t remember nothing about a swarm.” Sophie waved her left hand in the air dramatically, displaying a rather smallish wedding ring. “Don’t say anything about this to the folks. I ain’t got around to telling them yet.”
“You married Phil?” Her sister’s head bobbed up and down. Phil managed a cellular phone kiosk at the Emerald Square Mall. They met at a dating bar shortly after Easter, and Sophie moved into his studio apartment a month later.
“WE flew to Vegas on a lark last Saturday and got hitched at a swell wedding chapel. Phil chose a blue Hawaii Elvis theme.”
‘Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it…
On a whim, Sophie could leap Niagara Falls in a metaphorical barrel and emerged from her adolescent escapade a mile downstream unscathed and dry as a communion wafer. “I went to visit the bees earlier,” Judith mumbled. “The colony already doubled in size.”
“Yeah, you told me just two, shitty seconds ago.” She waved the skimpy ring in her sister’s face. “Here, I come and tell you the swell news and that’s all you got to say?”
* * * * *
The following week Judith made a second visit to Marlin Ave. Francine was screwing metal mouse guards over the entrances of her hives. “As the weather gets colder small rodents will be looking for a comfy place to hunker down.” With a pocketknife she snipped a wedge of honeycomb from a top bar. “Take a taste.”
Francine bit into the wax and her brain was bathed in sweetness. She bit down again and felt the dizzying ambrosia drizzle over her tongue. “Will you harvest the honey?”
Francine shook her head. “Not until spring. I’ll take some then, if the girls survive the cold. No way telling how much they’ll need to suffer through the big chill.”
“How’s the pepperbush holding up?” Francine asked.
“Gone… dried up. All that’s left this season is a handful of linden trees and the ragweed, which should peak in another week or so.” Francine pulled a dingy handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose. “I’ll feed strengthening teas every day or so between now and then.”
Judith pointed at an inverted container filled with clear liquid resting on a maroon base over by the shed. The base was littered with a scattering of smooth rocks and pebbles. “What’s that?”
“A chicken feeder.”
Judith scanned the yard. “Where are the chickens?”
“Sold them a while back. I use the contraption as a watering hole for my girls.”
Because the bulk of the insects were workers not drones, Francine always referred to the bees as her girls. Sure enough, several dozen thirsty bees were scurrying about the rocks lining the chicken feeder in search of a crevice where they could crawl down to the water line. The scene was reminiscent of something out of the Wild West - a barroom full of thirsty cowboys just returned from a dusty cattle drive cozying up to the bar at the local saloon.
“Speaking of liquid nourishment, would you like a drink?” The older woman led the way back into the house. Though the exterior was ramshackle, the interior of the home was tidy in an austere sort of way. Francine poured lemonade into cups. They wandered back outside and settled into a pair of cedar Adirondack chairs.
“Those colonies, “she gestured toward a pair of Langstroth hives fifty feet away, “overwintered just fine, but the one further back starved out in late March.” Francine delivered the news matter-of-factly.
When temperatures dropped below freezing, bees no longer left the hive. From January on, Francine monitored the cluster with a stethoscope shifting the flat disc about the perimeter of the wooden boxes searching for the thrumming throb of life. In late March after a freak snowstorm that downed power lines trees, Francine trudged through two feet of snow to the hive. She placed the stethoscope against the three-quartered-inch pine. Nothing. Not even the slightest sound. Opening the hive the following month, a three-inch-deep mound of frost-covered bee carcasses littered the bottom board.
“Winter clusters form when ambient temperatures reach fifty-four to fifty-seven degrees.” She sipped at her lemonade and continued. “The bees clustered near the center of the hive. On the far side of the comb that had played out was a frame with eight pounds of pristine, untouched honey. The nourishment mig
ht as well have been in mainland China, because the temperature was too cold for the insects to break cluster and migrate the few inches to the new food source.”
Shifting in the rickety chair, Francine observed a newborn bee which, upon emerging from the hive, had come to rest on her wrist. The insect trotted across her leathery palm before flitting off the pinky finger into the air. The baby swirled helicopter fashion over the hive entrance a half dozen times before disappearing inside. “The colony starved out,” she noted with a sardonic, bitter-sweet smile, “a hairsbreadth from salvation.”
Francine gestured toward the landing strip where, under the collective weight of their flimsy bodies, several workers were dragging a larger drone from the hive. “Eviction notices being served,” Francine noted with a morbid chuckle.
The drone with bulgy, oversized eyes that extended around the side of his head momentarily broke free and dashed back toward the hive entrance, but a quick-footed worker blocked his way. Negotiating the hapless male toward the edge of the ramp, the bees gave him the bum’s rush toppling the drone over the edge and onto the crabgrass below.
“Drones exist for one purpose… to inseminate the queen,” Francine explained. “They’re gluttons and, given the opportunity, would gobble up all the honey stores. Every September, in preparation for the winter, male bees are banished from the hive.” No sooner had she finished saying this, a feisty worker emerged hauling a second, uncooperative male, which she mercilessly booted off the platform.
‘Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,…
“I want… I want,” Judith stuttered. Her jaw was chewing up the humid, late summer air like a garbage disposal, but no coherent words issued forth.
Francine stared at her uncertainly. “Excuse me?”
“I want what they have.”
“What the bees have?” The older woman was trying to decipher her intent.
“I want you to teach me everything about the bees,” Judith was struggling to organize her fractured thoughts. “I want a hive of my own.”