When bees are born, we’re told we have a singular purpose: to serve the colony. Worker or drone, our job is to make sure the future of the colony is secure. In plain terms, we exist to support the queen. And if she ever stops doing what her singular purposeContinue Reading

The keepers mourned & the people asked what happens when the buzz is gone…where the apples, how the melons, can pickles be replaced? Everyone concerned wanted a conversation & talk is the opposite of observation. Consider the patience of a man seeking to understand the messages of bees, comprehend stepsContinue Reading

“Do you ever feel restless?” Asked the worker of a drone. “Long to live beyond the structuresThe hexagons of honeycombs? Ever feel we’re something more Than antenna twitches And wing flicks And buzzing bands of yellow In vast washes of green Under distant blankets of blue? Away from the queenApartContinue Reading

Estranged from my family, I was surprised at the call.“Master Anders?” said the voice. There was a distinct buzzing, what might have been electrical interference or perhaps–“Yes? Yes? Hello,” I said. “Yes. This is Anders. Hello?”The voice on the line began a coughing fit. He had covered the receiver withContinue Reading

A billowing plume of dust raged across the sprawling grassland. Darkness gripped the sky as the black blizzard waged onward towards the Oklahoma expanse. Since 1930, the swirling storm of dust and dirt has cascaded over fertile farmland, devastating crops and ways of life across Boise City. With an absenceContinue Reading

The Scene: A small Bavarian town in the Georgian EraThe Players:Georgina, the youngest sisterPhillipa, the middle sisterFredericka, the oldest sisterThe Ants of a HillSome DucksA Hive of Bees and their QueenThree prince brothers, who all looked exactly alike Phillipa and Edwina laid on a blanket in a field overlooking theContinue Reading

Cuppediatoris1 voce coloribusque bomboque corporis cum Helena paene defigebatur2, exsultationi tamen repugnabat. Monstrum erat sub ostentatione venustā, cuius nidus novacularum cruore madefactus in pedibus Helenae iacebat. Dubitet fauces eius incidere, si manum ei iniecit3? Duobus Helenae hunc horrorem spectantis cordis palpitationibus4, Cuppediator lodicem exuit.Cum fugere ex sinibus nitebatur, iacca diloricabaturContinue Reading

We’ve suited up into our white coveralls, gloves, hard hats, elasticized netting. Tom says he feels like a volunteer firefighter on a last-minute call, pulling on equipment, rushing out the door. My suit is stained with splotches of honey and propolis and old smoker residue. In three years, I’ve neverContinue Reading