Aerie InternationaL - Missoula County Public Schools

I got a little too excited; you know how I get sometimes. But I was real
good about it; I got control of myself and caught my breath, and when
the guy said, Hello? I said, Is this the bee man? and he said, Yes, and I said,
My granny’s got a bee problem, how do you get those bees down, do you cut down
the hive and then transport them somewhere? and he said, No, we just gas them;
they drop dead within twenty-four hours, guaranteed, and I said, Isn’t that bad
for the environment? and he said,
Son, which do you care about more, the
“environment” or your granny being
stung by a bunch of insects? and when I
didn’t say anything, he said, Where
does your granny live? and then I got
nervous and hung up.
That may sound like a failure
to you, but I’m not James Bond, so
get over it. There are other ways
to find out about honeybees. On
the internet, I found out about
the worker bees. They do all kinds of stuff you wouldn’t guess, using
processes you wonder how they set up without talking to each other,
without signing a constitution. The worker bees are the sexual misfits.
Some of them go on errands, some of them guard against intruders, some
of them tidy up the hive before the queen does room inspection, some of
them carry out the dead and injured. They’re all little humans in little
palaces, and I guess we’re killing them all, and I knew that would set
River ablaze.
I made my move before history class started. I didn’t want to do it
in front of the chemistry teacher; I just knew that crazy Whit would
overhear me and compliment me for being “well versed,” or some crock
like that, make me sound like a geek, a bozo. I knew the history teacher,
a coach who didn’t know the difference between Cleopatra and Reagan.
I knew he wouldn’t give a rat’s tail. He was the kind that went home and
learned from the textbook along with us, and if you asked him a question
he didn’t know, he’d go into a class-long rant about Bonnie and Clyde,
just to avoid answering. He said that when they robbed all those places
during the Great Depression, Bonnie never fired a shot. Did you know
that? During the shoot outs, Clyde fired and Bonnie loaded.
Anywho, that day I took a deep breath and dove in with both feet;
I marched straight up to River and told her about the bees and Bill
Maloney. I could tell this surprised her enough to quell her rage some,
but I realized I needed to have a reason for striking up a conversation, so
I said, Wouldn’t it be funny if we found out where this guy lived and, say, egged his
24
On the internet, I found
out about the worker bees.
They do all kinds of stuff
you wouldn’t guess, using
processes you wonder how
they set up without talking to
each other, without signing a
constitution.