The Beekeeper's Garden – Part 2: Honey Harvest

The honey came off in late August, thick and amber, dripping from the frames into the glass jars that Matej had scrubbed the night before. The whole village came to the garden to watch. Old women carried baskets of plums, children ran between the hives with sticky hands, and the old priest from the island blessed the first jar with a wink.

Tina had filled four notebooks with observations. She had drawn the dances, the wax cells, the way the queen moved through the hive like someone checking on a party. Matej had read every page and corrected her twice.

"You got the dance wrong," he said that evening, when the crowd had gone and the lake was turning violet.

"I got it right," said Tina. "You just don't like my drawing of the bee with the sunglasses."

"No one likes that bee."

She laughed, and leaned back on the wooden bench beside the hives, and felt the warm wind move across the grass.

"Can I ask you something?" said Matej.

"Yes."

"Are you going to sell the garden?"

Tina was quiet. The bees hummed softly around them, settling for the night.

"I was going to," she said. "I came with a contract in my bag. Then I met a man who knows the sound of every hive, and I couldn't make myself sign it."

Matej's expression was unreadable for a moment. Then he smiled.

"Then don't sign it," he said. "Stay for a season. Learn the dances. I'll show you how to take the frames without getting stung more than twice."

"Only twice?"

"On a good day," said Matej.

She laughed again, then turned to look at him properly. The last light caught the lines around his eyes, the faint scar on his wrist from some old accident with a smoker.

"Can I ask you something back?" she said.

"Yes."

"Would you like me to stay? Not for the garden. For the mornings and the bees and the bad jokes about queens?"

Matej's grin was slow and warm. "Yes," he said. "But I'd like to ask you something first."

"Ask."

"Can I kiss you? Here, on the bench, with the hives listening and the lake going dark?"

"Yes," said Tina. "And if I say stop, you have to explain the dance to me again, very slowly, while I pretend to understand."

"That's a very good deal," said Matej, and leaned in.

He kissed her gently, his hand warm against her cheek, the taste of fresh honey sweet on his lips. Tina's fingers curled into his shirt, and she kissed him back, slow and certain, while the bees droned quietly in the dusk.

When they parted, both of them were smiling.

"Green?" he asked, very softly.

"Green," said Tina. "Very green. Now show me the dance one more time, Matej. Slowly. I want to get the bee's sunglasses right."

"Everyone wants the sunglasses," said Matej, laughing, and began to move his hands in the air, slow and careful, showing her where the flowers were, while the bees settled one by one into the warm dark of the hives.