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Grampa Grossmann kept a few beehives not far from the farmhouse, in a patch of poppies that briefly bloomed each spring. Sometime in the 1960’s, I think it must have been, a few bees took up residence in the wall of the first floor of the house, outside the south bedroom, entering and exiting at a gap between the window frame and the siding. The south bedroom was the guest bedroom, and I slept in it on many visits over several decades. The house could be nearly silent at night, but the murmur of beating wings was perpetual; the first night of a stay was never as restful as the nights that followed.
I don’t think Gramma and Grampa ever sought to evict the bees. From time to time, Grampa would remove part of the window frame, pry back the clapboard siding, and harvest whatever honey he could reach.
Nowadays, everywhere, there are far fewer bees than used to be. And the bees I see now, where I live in town, don’t look quite like the bees I remember from various places where I lived as a kid. They seem longer-bodied, with dark stripes narrower than on the earlier models. Do you know, can that be so? Different species? My own imperfect powers of observation?
After Grampa died, in 1992, Gramma went into an old folks home, and the farmhouse went unoccupied. By humans, I mean. There are wasps and spiders, bats and birds. Chipmunks, mice or mice-like mammals. Maybe in the cellar a snake or two. After first frost each fall I go inside to look around and to think about years long gone. Raccoons seem to be the principal tenants now, leaving filthy evidence that they consider the place their own. I hadn’t recently noticed any honeybees. But my cousin Chad cut down some stray elms and locusts last month, trees that had been damaging the roof, and he opened a view that had long been blocked in summer. I happened to be at the farm on a recent sunny afternoon and noticed bees going in and out of a hole beside an upstairs window that had been concealed. I took some pictures and saw—son of a gun!—darned if those bees didn’t look like the old fashioned kind. The right body shape, with the stripes that I remember. I am acquainted with an elderly beekeeper whom I might ask about this. I would be pleased if I learned that some of what I have told you today is true.
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