by Olivia Waite
Penelope blinked. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Griffin nodded, Penelope lifted the wheelbarrow again, and together they walked the remaining three quarters of a mile to the print-works.
Penelope grabbed her smoker but left the rest of her tools in the wheelbarrow next to the fence, where it was immediately nosed at by a large sorrel horse, lured no doubt by the scent of honey. Penelope patted his neck by way of apology.
Mrs. Griffin waited by the door to the print-works, fidgeting. “If you’re quite ready, Mrs. Flood.”
Penelope squashed the tempting urge to dawdle, just to be contrary. It was coming on noon, and she likely had two hours’ work ahead of her. “Show me what we’re dealing with, Mrs. Griffin.”
Heads snapped to attention when Mrs. Griffin walked in, and gazes sharpened in recognition when the employees noticed Penelope. She nodded to Mr. Jarden and shook the hand of the grinning Reggie Downes. “I hear you’ve been colonized, Mr. Downes.”
“Indeed we have, ma’am.”
“This way, Mrs. Flood.” Mrs. Griffin was already waiting at the door to the back of the warehouse—goodness, she didn’t waste any time, did she?
Reggie Downes rolled his eyes in apology where his employer couldn’t see.
Penelope winked at him, then followed the printer into the maze of shelves.
It was a little like a library—but a vast, giant, monolithic kind of library, such as she imagined some race of titans might have built, to memorialize in solid metal the books that had told of their exploits. The plates were lined up in rows, one after another, with only a little space between. Her hands itched to pull one down from the shelf and read it, huge and heavy though they were.
From farther down the rows, Mrs. Griffin cleared her throat. She was standing near the back corner, arms folded, caught in a shaft of sunlight coming in through the nearby window. It gilded the gray hue of her dress and made the silver in her hair gleam like liquid fire. A few errant bees danced in the light around her, small sparks hovering over a larger, hotter flame.
Mrs. Griffin burned with impatience, alternately glaring at Penelope and at something else down the aisle to her right.
Presumably the swarm, judging from the unmistakable humming of hundreds of bees. Penelope wished she had the luxury of stopping and listening for a while. But even from half a warehouse away, there was no withstanding the force of Mrs. Griffin’s expectations.
Penelope walked forward, fighting the urge to kneel like a squire being knighted.
Then she reached the aisle and saw the bees.
Everything else fell away.
As she’d suspected, this colony of bees wasn’t a swarm proper: it had been once, but the bees had long since settled and made themselves a hive. A strong one, too, by the look of it—even from six feet away Penelope could make out the round domed cells of drone brood, and the smaller domes where baby workers were growing, and even a few rows of new honey capped off. Well-done of them, so early in the season.
They’d built fresh comb in between the leaden plates, fixed to the underside of the shelf above. Quite as if the bees had only wanted to memorialize their own work alongside Joanna Molesey’s. The shelf they’d settled on was chest-high, which was good, since if they’d colonized one of the higher areas it might have been more difficult to wrestle them out without damaging either the bees or the humans trying to help them.
Penelope stepped forward to get a closer look—and stopped as a hand seized her arm. She turned her head. “Is something the matter?”
“I thought . . .” Mrs. Griffin peered at her anxiously, then took a deep breath and dropped her hand from Penelope’s coat. The spot where she’d touched burned a little for a moment or two after, then cooled. “I’m sorry.”
Penelope tilted her head. “You were afraid I’d get stung?”
“Weren’t you?”
“Not particularly.” Penelope tilted her head. “But I’m used to bees, remember. I forgot that you weren’t.” She pulled out her smoker and her tinderbox. “Here’s what I’m going to do: I’ll start with a little smoke, to make the bees drowsy and willing to be handled.”
“You’re going to handle them?” Mrs. Griffin paled.
Penelope laughed softly. “How else did you plan for them to be moved?”
Mrs. Griffin huffed, but made no reply.
Penelope pulled out her tinderbox and lit the smoker. A few pumps of the bellows later and the funnel was puffing out clouds of sweet white smoke. Penelope brought it close to the colony and puffed at the main mass of bees; the colony clutched a little tighter and wriggled a little slower, as the smoke began to take effect. “It will be a minute or two yet,” Penelope said, and went to retrieve the wheelbarrow.
Mrs. Griffin was still there when Penelope returned, wheelbarrow trundling over the stone floor.
Penelope realized that she would have an audience for today’s work. “You don’t have to stand watch, if you don’t like. It’s going to take some time, I’m afraid.”
The printer grimaced. “I will not feel comfortable until these insects are gone,” she replied. “My people know where to find me when I am needed.”
Well, Penelope was used to working with touchy, easily irritated creatures. She puffed a little more smoke on the bees, though, just in case, and wished it would have had the same calming effect on Mrs. Griffin.
Perhaps the printer would be less anxious if she knew what Penelope was doing, and why. “First thing is to make the new hive a welcoming place,” Penelope began. She’d brought with her a round straw skep in two parts, like a bell with the top part of the dome sliced off. The inside of the larger part she’d rubbed with a little beeswax, which gave some traction to the straw coils and let the bees know this was a safe place for building comb. She set this on the bottom board and made sure it was steady and wouldn’t tip. Next she spread out a plain sheet on the floor—the better to spot you with, my dear—and brought out a handful of slender bars made of birch.
“The bees should be well and drowsy by now,” she said, turning to Mrs. Griffin. “I’m going to put on some gloves and a veil, since I’ll be working quite closely with the comb, but you should be quite safe as long as you stay still and quiet.”
Mrs. Griffin nodded once, sharply, and Penelope donned the rest of her bee clothes: sturdy gloves that disappeared into her coat cuffs, and a hat with muslin hanging down from the brim, tucked cozily beneath her coat lapels. “Right,” she said, and pulled out her knife. “Now we start cutting out the comb.”
She moved forward leisurely and carefully sliced the largest golden wedge away from the shelving. Bees clustered and hummed on the comb as she lifted it, but only one or two took flight in alarm.
Penelope turned the comb back and forth, peering closely. “Ah, there’s the queen—see that larger bee, in the center of the cluster? Her daughters are taking proper care of her.” Penelope couldn’t keep some of the joy out of her voice: bees followed their queen loyally, so moving her was the first step to moving the colony as a whole.
“Now we just . . . rearrange the furniture a bit.” Penelope knelt and rested the base of the honeycomb on the sheet, near the larger main section of the skep. A few quick strokes with a turkey feather brushed the bees from the comb to the sheet, where the workers quickly made a defensive clump around their dethroned queen. Meanwhile Penelope took out a large needle and thick linen thread, and whipstitched the upper edge of the honeycomb to a birch bar, being careful not to go through any brood cells. She then rested the bar across the top straw coil.
The honeycomb was now hanging in the center of the skep, just as it had hung from the underside of the shelf.
Penelope grinned. “Time to move our queen.” And, slowly, she slipped her gloved fingers into the mass of bees on the sheet.
Behind her, Mrs. Griffin choked.
Penelope kept her fingers soft and her mind serene—some of the older, stranger books said bees could read a beekeeper’s thoughts, and Penel
ope didn’t know if this were true but she did know that bees were still very much a mystery.
It never hurt to be careful, did it?
She slid her fingers slowly underneath the queen and a few of her ladies, murmuring compliments. A few more workers followed until the palm of Penelope’s hand was crowded. Then she lifted and reverently placed the queen and her little court inside the skep, on the bottom board. Soon enough the queen would make her way up the walls and back onto the comb; the rest of the hive as well as the remaining clump on the sheet would slowly but inevitably follow.
Even now, a few had flown out of the skep to tell the others where the queen had gone, and a few other insects were marching determinedly across the sheet, following the scents of honey and home.
Penelope stood and met Mrs. Griffin’s wide-eyed gaze through the muslin of her veil. “That’s the heart of it. Now we just do the same thing a few more times.”
Mrs. Griffin’s eyebrows rose and she breathed out a little laugh. “Oh, is that all?”
Penelope was puzzled by the astonishment in the printer’s tone. It seemed out of all proportion with the ordinariness of the job. “Yes, that’s about it. Not terribly complicated, I suppose.”
Mrs. Griffin made a helpless noise in the back of her throat, and leaned against the wall at her back.
Penelope cut down and moved the other three pieces of comb, as Mrs. Griffin watched and fidgeted at the end of the aisle. A few times Reggie Downes came back to murmur some question, and once Sam Ashton came back simply to watch; Mrs. Griffin tolerated the boy for fully five minutes before shooing him back to his duties.
When all the pieces of comb were safely hanging within the skep hive, Penelope delicately scooped up the remaining bees from the sheet and poured them gently along the top bars. The queen had already made it back onto one of the combs, she saw with a smile. The smaller skep lid, once settled, closed off the hive and protected it.
“Now we just give it a little while for the stragglers to find their way,” Penelope said, stripping off her gloves and lifting her veil away from her face.
The light had shifted into mid-afternoon richness, and Mrs. Griffin moved nearer to peer interestedly at the skep. “What will you do with the hive?” the printer asked.
“Well, my own garden is not large enough to support more hives than I already have.” Penelope’s smile widened. “So I thought you might keep it.”
Mrs. Griffin’s gaze was a lance.
Penelope tugged her gloves off and tucked them into her coat pockets. “Normally I’d offer it to one of the local families, but it’s been a very strong year for swarms, and I don’t know anyone with hives standing empty at the moment. And the bees chose this spot, so there must be things they like within foraging distance—and when it comes to flowers and forage, you’ll find that bees know best.”
Mrs. Griffin cast a helpless glance around the shelves in the warehouse. “You can’t be suggesting I keep them here?”
She sounded appalled. Penelope took pity. “Well, not indoors, of course—but maybe out against the back wall? They would be snug as houses, up against the brick with a bit of roof to protect them from the rain.”
Mrs. Griffin swallowed. “I’m not sure I have the constitution to . . . do what you’ve done today.” A wave of her hand indicated the sheet, still spotted with a few disoriented bees.
“Oh!” Penelope shook her head. “It’s not like this usually—rehiving is a very particular thing, and something of a specialty of mine. Most of the work with bees is just watching and waiting: check to make sure they’re building honeycomb right, check to make sure you don’t have pests, check to make sure no one has knocked over a hive. A lot of people set children to tending them, for the day-to-day.”
Mrs. Griffin pursed her lips, weighing this new information. “My apprentices have their own work—and I am in London most days . . .”
Penelope shrugged. “If that’s all that’s stopping you, I could keep an eye on the colony and let you know when something needs doing.”
“You would?”
“Of course! It’s very little trouble—I only have four colonies of my own, you see, so it leaves me plenty of time to look in on a lot of the other hives in and around Melliton. Make sure all the bees are thriving, help out whenever there’s chalkbrood or wax moths, show new beekeepers how to harvest honey and wax.”
Mrs. Griffin was staring at her as if she’d started speaking some mystical language other than English. “What would I owe you? Why would you go to such trouble for me?”
Penelope chuckled, even though something about the tenor of the question made a part of her ache with sympathy. Imagine having to question why someone might offer you a kindness. “Not for you, Mrs. Griffin—we’ve only just met. I’d do it for the bees, though.”
“Because you care about the bees.” That said carefully, as though Mrs. Griffin expected it to be instantly contradicted.
Penelope smiled. “Precisely.”
Once again, the printer fixed her with that searching look. It was all Penelope could do not to spread her arms and turn around to be inspected.
But then Mrs. Griffin straightened, and her eyes met Penelope’s again. “I’ll call Mr. Downes in to help.”
Penelope had brought a small stool in the wheelbarrow, fortunately, anticipating something like this. Together she and Mr. Downes lifted the bottom board with the skep—gently!—and walked it out through the print-works and around to the side of the warehouse. From here the river was a gentle burble, and the meadow beyond beckoned.
Mr. Downes helped situate the hive, then returned to the print-works. Mrs. Griffin hovered, gazing at the scenery as though she suspected it was trying to pick her pocket. Penelope considered the location. The fences to either side of the property should keep the hive safe from local wildlife, but Penelope made a mental note to come back and build a proper small fence sometime soon. She took down the printer’s London address, and gave her own direction in return, promising to write as soon as there were any developments with the hive.
“Congratulations, Mrs. Griffin,” she said, tucking the slip of paper into a pocket. “You are now a beekeeper.”
“Thank you,” the printer said. “I think.”
“You’re welcome, I’m sure.”
When she left, Mrs. Griffin was standing beside the skep, arms crossed and frowning. Still as vexed as before, but puzzlement softened it—she resembled nothing so much as a bee gone out early for forage, who had come back to find the rest of the hive had swarmed without her.
Time, Penelope knew, could work wonders. So could bees.
She couldn’t wait to see what effect both would have on Mrs. Griffin.
Chapter Four
Dear Mrs. Griffin,
I write with good news: your new beehive is thriving and the colony is hard at work. I will let you know as soon as your first honey crop is ready, or if any problems arise.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Penelope Flood
Bees were a country thing. Or so Agatha would have thought. But they suddenly seemed to be everywhere in the city: buzzing on the signs for sweet shops and grocer’s, hovering over taverns and public houses, carved into the decoration of churches and cathedrals. Even embossed on covers by the bookbinderies, where Griffin’s brought their finest manuscripts to be encased in leather and gilt.
When Agatha stepped out behind the workshop three days later for a breath of fresh air, and found herself hypnotized for a quarter of an hour by one particularly fat bumblebee’s progress across the stretch of mischievous weedy wildflowers at the back, she threw her hands in the air, gave in to Fate, and wrote back.
Dear Mrs. Flood,
Thank you for keeping your expert eye on the hive’s progress. I admit it makes me a trifle anxious to think of them working away out of doors, while I sit at my desk plotting to make off with the fruits of their labor. Normally one pays wages or offers room and board for that sort of thing.
Regards,
Mrs. Agatha Griffin
The reply came two days later.
Dear Mrs. Griffin,
Well, you did provide the bees with shelter and land, albeit only a very small parcel. Think of them as journeymen, if you prefer, or tenants. Farmers, not factory workers.
I should caution you, though, they are liable to resist enclosure with more than usual ferocity.
Sincerely,
Penelope Flood
Agatha snickered out loud at that, and was reaching for pen and paper in almost the same instant.
Mrs. Flood,
Clearly bees are more radical than I would have expected, considering that they are so famous for their royalty. My son, Sydney, would be delighted to hear of their democratic sentiments—he is of a rather radical persuasion himself, though I have every hope he will soon grow out of it. Nineteen is still young enough to be wrong and recover from it, wouldn’t you think?
Perhaps the next time he announces his intention to hear one of Mr. Carlyle’s seditious speeches in the Crown and Anchor, I will tell him to go sit in a beehive instead. Surely that would be safer than letting him stroll so often into that wasp’s nest of anarchists and Jacobins.
As it happens, Griffin’s has just received the first finished copies of a new book on bees written by a very learned Scotswoman. I am no expert, but the first pages have intrigued me—I include a copy as a gift, and beg you will tell me if the book is all grand new scientific revelations, or the wise observations of ancient generations.
Either one should suffice for an advertisement.
Regards,
Agatha Griffin
Mrs. Griffin,
I write with a somewhat mixed collection of news. First thing, the Scotswoman’s bee book is excellent—very tart and keen, and solidly observed, though naturally as a fellow enthusiast I have questions on some of the finer points. Which may in fact only be down to differences between our pleasant southern woods and the chillier, rougher climates of the north. I have a brother near Edinburgh—I shall write to him and ask. He’ll be delighted I finally have an interest in the weather up there, which is usually the only thing he manages to get into his (mercifully short and rare) letters.