Николас Спаркс - The Return

“I thought you had to make pies for your neighbor.”

“I did that yesterday.”

“Very efficient,” I commented. “Now come on in,” I said, waving her through the doorway.

Her footsteps echoed behind me as we passed from the family room to the kitchen. I paused. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Eyeing the sweating glass of iced tea in my hand, she nodded and said, “I’ll have one of those, if you don’t mind.”

“Good choice—I just brewed it last night, as a matter of fact.”

Retrieving a glass, I added ice cubes and filled it with sweet dark tea from the refrigerator. I handed it to her, then leaned against the counter, watching as she took a sip.

“It’s not bad.”

“As good as your pies?”

“No.”

I laughed, watching as she took another sip and surveyed the house. Despite myself, I was grateful for my mom’s training. Natalie, no doubt, now thought of me as tidy, in addition to rather charming. Or maybe not. I knew I was interested in her, but she was still a mystery to me.

“You’ve made some changes to the place,” she noted.

“Though I loved living in a time capsule, I felt the need to update the decor.”

“It seems more open, too.”

“My grandfather had a lot of stuff. I got rid of it.”

“My parents are like that. On the fireplace mantel back home, there must be fifty framed photographs. Try to dust one, and they topple like dominoes. I don’t understand it.”

“Maybe the older people get, the more important the past becomes? Because there’s less future ahead?”

“Maybe,” she said, without adding anything else.

Unable to read her, I pushed open the back door. “Ready?”

I followed her out onto the back porch, watching her settle in the same rocker as she had the first night I’d met her. Unlike me, she didn’t lean back; instead, she remained propped on the edge, as if ready to jump up and run away if she had to. After all our banter, I was surprised that she wasn’t more relaxed, but I was getting the feeling that Natalie was full of surprises.

I took a sip of my tea, watching as she gazed toward the creek, her profile as perfect as cut glass.

“I think I could stare at this forever.”

“Me too,” I said, looking only at her.

She smirked, but decided to let my remark pass.

“Do you ever swim out there?”

“I did when I was a kid. Right now, the water’s still too cold.”

“That might be a good thing. Apparently someone sighted some alligators a little ways upstream.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s pretty rare to find them this far north. We get reports of them once or twice a year, but I’ve never had any luck sighting any. They tend to be in places cars can’t reach.”

“If you’d ever like to go out on the water, I’ve got the boat right out there.”

“That might be fun,” she agreed before folding her hands in her lap, suddenly all business again. “What did you want to tell me about the bees?”

“Let’s start with this,” I said, setting my glass aside. “How much do you know about bees? And how much do you want to know?”

“I have about an hour, maybe a little more. So tell me whatever you think will be important.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Bee colonies have an annual cycle. In the winter, a hive might have five or ten thousand bees. In the spring, once it warms up, the queen begins laying more eggs, and the population begins to grow. During the summer months, a hive might hold up to a hundred thousand bees, which is why an apiarist might add another chamber to the hive. Then, as autumn approaches, the queen begins to lay fewer eggs. The population starts to diminish again, because the colony somehow knows it hasn’t stored enough honey to feed all the bees. In the winter, the remaining bees eat the honey to survive. They also cluster together and vibrate to create heat, so the colony doesn’t freeze. When it begins to warm, the cycle starts all over again.”

She digested that, then held up a hand. “Hold on,” she said. “Before you go on, I want to know how you learned all this stuff. Did your grandfather teach you?”

“We tended the hives together whenever I was down here visiting. But I also heard him give the talk to lots of different people. When I was in high school, I even did a semester-long project on bees for my science class.”

“Just making sure you know what you’re talking about. Go on.”

Did I detect a bit of flirting in her tone? I reached for my tea again, trying not to lose track of my thoughts. Her beauty was distracting.

“Every hive also has a single queen. Assuming the queen doesn’t get sick, she lives from three to five years. Early on in her life cycle, the queen flies around and gets fertilized by as many male bees as she can before returning to the hive where she’ll lay eggs for the rest of her life. The eggs turn to larvae, and then pupae, and when they’re mature, the bees are ready to serve the hive. Unlike the queen, these worker bees live only six or seven weeks, and they’ll cycle through a variety of different jobs in their short lives. The vast majority are female. The males are called drones.”

“And all the drones do is mate with the queen and eat.”

“You remembered.”

“It was hard to forget,” she said. “What happens if the queen dies?”

“Bee colonies have a fail-safe,” I answered. “No matter what time of year, when a queen is weakening or not laying enough eggs, the nurse bees will start feeding several of the larvae a substance called royal jelly. This food changes the larvae into queens, and the strongest one will take over. If necessary, that new queen will then replace the older queen. At which point, she’ll fly away and mate with as many drones as she can before returning to the hive to spend the rest of her life laying eggs.”

“That isn’t much of a life for a queen.”

“Without her, the colony will die. That’s why she’s called the queen.”

“Still, you’d think she’d get to go shopping or attend a wedding every now and then.”

I smiled, recognizing in her humor something akin to my own. “Now, yesterday I mentioned a few of the jobs bees do during their life cycle—clean the hive or feed the larvae or whatever. But the majority of bees in any hive collect pollen and nectar. A lot of people might think that pollen and nectar are the same, but they’re not. Nectar is the sugary juice in the heart of the flowers. Pollen, on the other hand, are tiny grains that collect on the anthers. Want to guess which one leads to the making of honey?”

She pursed her lips. “Nectar?”

“Exactly,” I said. “A bee will fill its nectar sacs, fly back to the hive, and turn the nectar into honey. A bee also has glands that turn some of the sugar in the honey into beeswax. And little by little, honey is created and stored.”

“How is nectar turned into honey?”

“It’s kind of gross.”

“Just tell me.”

“When a bee gets back to the hive with its load of nectar, it passes the nectar mouth-to-mouth to a different bee, who then does the same to another bee, over and over, gradually lowering the moisture content. When it gets concentrated enough, it’s called honey.”

She made a face. For a second, I could picture her as a teenager. “That is kind of gross.”

“You asked.”

“What happens with bees who bring in pollen?”

“Pollen is mixed with nectar to make bee bread. That’s what they feed the larvae.”

“And the royal jelly?”

“I don’t know how that’s made,” I admitted. “I used to know, but I’ve forgotten.”

“At least you’re honest.”

“Always,” I said. “But that brings us to another important point. Because the bees need to eat the honey to survive the winter, an apiarist has to be careful not to take too much when they harvest.”