Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 18 Who Said Cheese

"If a worker stings you, he dies."

"That's small comfort. Give me a bee veil and some gloves."

They walked down a rutted trail to the river, where all was quiet except for the rushing of the rapids and the cawing of crows. On the bank stood a shabby cabin with a paltry chimney and a hand pump on a wooden platform at the door. A lonely outhouse stood in a nearby field.

Aubrey said, "My family had six cabins they rented to bass fishermen. Two burned down. Three blew away in a storm. I live in this one. The walls were fulla wild bees, and I hadda smoke 'em out and take off the siding, and underneath the walls were fulla honey."

As they neared the cabin, Qwilleran became aware of a faint buzzing; he put on the gloves and the hat with a veil. On the south side of the building, exposed to the sun and protected from the north wind, was a row of wooden boxes elevated on platforms - not as picturesque as the old dome-shaped hives pictured on honey labels. The boxes were Langstroth hives, Qwilleran later learned, designed in 1851.

Aubrey said, "The bees do all the work. I take the trays of honeycomb up to the shed and draw the honey off and put it in jars. Those trays get pretty heavy."

"'Sounds like sticky business," Qwilleran said.

"I hadda crazy accident, once. I di'n't put the jar right under the spout, and the honey ran allover the floor."

The busy bees paid no attention to the journalist. He spoke quietly and made no sudden moves. "What do they do in winter?"

"They cluster together in the hives and keep each other warm. I wrap the hives in straw and stuff. They can get out if they want, but the mice can't get in."

"What about snow?"

"It don't matter if the hives are buried in snow, but ice-that's bad. My whole colony was smothered by ice, once."

It was a fantastic story, if true, Qwilleran thought. He would check it against the bee book at the library. "And now I'd like to see the cuckoo clock," he said. Truthfully, it was the interior of the mansion that interested him: the carved woodwork, the staghorn chandelier, the stained glass. The furnishings were sparse. The old man had sold almost everything, Aubrey said. Only one room looked inhabited. There were two overstuffed chairs in front of a TV, a large wardrobe carved with figures of wild game, and a gun cabinet with glass doors. The pendulum of the carved clock wagged on the wall.

"Who's the hunter?" Qwilleran asked.

"The old man shoots rabbits and makes hasenpfeffer. He shoots crows, too. I used to do lotsa hunt'n' with my brothers. I was a good shot." He looked away. "I don't wanna hunt any more."

The clock sounded cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo, and Qwilleran said it was time to leave. He paid for his honey and left with a new respect for the thick amber fluid. How many bellyfuls of nectar would it take, he wondered, to make a pint of honey?

He propped his purchases in a safe place in his car, where they would not tip or spill. Then he drove to Toodle's Market to buy something fresh for the Siamese and something frozen for himself. On the way he thought about the industrious workers and the hapless drones... about nature's way of converting flowers into food without chemicals or preservatives... and about the mild-mannered beekeeper who talked to his bees. Not a word had been said about the hotel bombing, an incident that was on everyone's tongue.

Arriving at the market, Qwilleran opened his car door and heard a sickening sound as glass broke on concrete pavement in a puddle of amber goo. He looked down at the disaster, then up at the sky and counted to ten.

7

A jar of honey spilled on a parking lot is not as bad as a jar of spilled honey mixed with broken glass. Qwilleran, having made this profound observation, notified Mrs. Toodle, and she summoned one of her grandsons, The three of them marched single file to the scene of the accident, Qwilleran apologizing profusely and Mrs. Toodle thanking him for reporting it, The situation tickled the funny bone of the young Toodle; it was almost as funny as the time he dropped a crate of eggs.

"You'll have to get every last bit of glass," his grandmother admonished. "If a dog comes along and licks the spot, he could cut his tongue," When her back was turned, Qwilleran slipped the young man a generous tip.

"That's not necessary," she said, having developed eyes in the back of her head after years of running a supermarket.