The Honey Weekend – Part 1: White Suits

"Slowly," said the instructor. "Everything very slowly."

"I'm moving slowly," said Katja.

"You are moving like a woman late for a train."

She froze, one hand on the hive lid, and bit back a laugh. Beside her, Matej, in a baggy white beekeeper's suit and a veiled hat, shook with silent mirth. They stood on a green Slovenian hillside in the hot morning sun, among rows of painted wooden hives, with a ring of orchards below and a line of blue mountains beyond. Bees droned in the lime flowers. The air was warm and sweet.

She was forty-one, a pharmacist, tall and brisk, with a dark braid down her back. He was forty-four, an electrician, broad, calm, with a lopsided grin. Nineteen years married, two teenagers at his mother's, and a weekend planned by Katja's sister as a "reset." The instructor, a tiny old man in a straw hat, held a smoker like a conductor's baton.

"The smoke makes them calm," he said. "Like a cigar after dinner."

He puffed. A grey wisp drifted over the hive. The bees quietened. Katja lifted the lid with infinite care, and a hot, golden smell rose out: honey, wax, warm wood. Inside, hundreds of bees clung to the frames in humming clusters. She lifted one out, heavy with honeycomb.

"Oh," she breathed.

"Oh," said Matej, close behind her.

The comb glistened, dripping and amber. The bees crawled over her gloves, over her wrists. She wasn't afraid. She was enthralled.

"They don't mind us," said Matej.

"They've no idea we exist."

"We should stay very still."

"We should stay very slow."

"That's the hardest thing I've done all year," he whispered.

She laughed softly, through the veil. They worked through the morning, easing out frames, spotting the queen, brushing bees gently aside. By noon, the sun was hot and her suit was damp, but she had never felt so calm.

"Can I ask you something?" said Katja.

"Yes."

"When did we last do something slowly?"

"The wedding," said Matej. "And it went very fast."

"Green?" she said, the old word.

"Green," said Matej, tenderly. "Very green. Pass me the smoker."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Extraction.