Telling the Bees by Peggy Hesketh Read Free Book Online

cloth near the flyway of a particularly testy hive. The constant flapping of the cloth in the breeze helps the bees to become accustomed to motion. This discourages them from rising forth to defend their hive from the occasional passerby. I have also found that several good puffs from a smoker can do much to calm an agitated hive when working in close quarters. But when all else fails, a cantankerous queen must be replaced.”
    Detective Grayson nodded for me to continue as his eyes flickered about the room before coming to rest on the large picture window that dominated my dining room’s west wall.
    “You must understand that the queen sets the overall tone of the hive,” I said, my eyes instinctively following the detective’s. “Just as a gentle queen usually produces a hive of workers and drones as even-tempered as she, a cantankerous queen more often than not holds court over a hive that is easily frightened or offended no matter what care we take to placate it.
    “Come the first warm days of spring, it is the cross-tempered hives that are the first to swarm. This is why extra vigilance is required when a new queen is expected to emerge from such a hive,” I explained. “The last thing I want is another bad-tempered hive to go with the one I already have.”
    Detective Grayson continued to stare past me and out the window. I took another sip of lemonade before recounting how, having heard the stirrings of a new brood of queens from my number sixteen hive the night before, my plan was to be up and outside first thing in the morning to watch for a gentle new queen to emerge so that I might use her to requeen my increasingly ill-tempered number four. I was about to explain exactly how such an operation was accomplished when the detective drew a conspicuous breath and refocused his eyes on mine.
    “Are you sure you didn’t notice anything unusual over at the Straussmans’ when you first got up?”
    “Nothing that I can recall.”
    “Think a little harder. How about when you were eating breakfast?” the good detective pressed. “Maybe you noticed something then?”
    I told him that I hardly remembered my repast at all, so anxious had I been to get on with my morning’s plan. “Why do you ask?”
    “We think the old ladies must have died shortly after breakfast, judging from what the coroner found in their stomachs—bits of toast and egg and some undigested chunks of wax,” Detective Grayson said, flipping through the pages of the notebook he had withdrawn from his jacket pocket. “What do you make of the wax?”
    “That would be their daily dose of honeycomb,” I replied. “Claire and Hilda were particularly fond of comb honey. They said the only way to properly enjoy it was to crush it with a knife and spread it on their morning toast—honey, wax, and bread all mashed together. Hilda swore this practice was what helped her ward off colds and all manners of sinus troubles. Myself, I prefer to cut off a bite-size piece of comb honey, chew it awhile, and then discard the wax, though I can’t say for sure it does me any more good than Hilda’s way during cold and flu season. You know, my grandmother, on the other hand, swore by black walnuts. ‘Crack and eat the meat of six walnuts,’ she’d say, ‘and you will not be sick a day.’”
    Detective Grayson chose not to engage in a debate between the merits of honeycomb versus walnuts.
    “You wouldn’t happen to know what time they normally ate their breakfast?” he prodded.
    “Shortly after sunrise, between six and seven, just as I do,” I said. “Especially at this time of year. The young queens usually begin to hatch first thing in the morning, so it’s best to get an early start on the day’s activities. The earlier, the better.”
    “I take it then that you were up first thing Friday morning, same as the Straussmans were,” Detective Grayson said, scribbling a line or two in his notebook and then pausing. “Think now, Mr. Honig. Maybe