Find the queen.
Nora knew she was in there. There was so much brood, the visible work of a very busy queen bee.
But she was losing hope. Without the queen, the hive had a very real possibility of not succeeding. Nora felt disappointment form like a knot in her stomach. All of this work, only to fail the bees after all.
J.P. peered over her shoulder, vacuum nozzle pointed and humming toward the wall as it ran.
Nora scoured the space, squinting into crevices and corners. There were still plenty of bees attempting to wriggle into safe hiding places, but Nora wasn’t concerned about them. She only cared about one in particular.
It was like one of those Find Waldo pages, but rather than a red and white shirt, there was a blur of black and yellow moving stripes.
“Is that her?” J.P. jumped at Nora’s back, nearly shouting in her ear. “Right there.”
He switched off the vacuum and tipped the nozzle toward a long, large bee hiding out near the baseboard.
Nora was so delighted she could squeal. “That’s her!”
Quickly, she unclipped the plastic cage and opened it, hovering it right over the queen, careful not to disturb her, but moving fast enough that she couldn’t get away.
“Oh, she’s magnificent,” Nora admired. She held the bee cage up between them and rotated it around.
“She really is.” J.P. looked past the queen, staring directly into Nora’s gaze.
Maybe it was the hour’s worth of hard work, maybe it was the protective suit covering her, but Nora’s body flushed with heat head-to-toe.
“I can’t believe you were the one to find her,” she said.
“Well, I did attend a very detailed lesson on honeybee anatomy the other day. What can I say?” He gave a little shrug of his broad shoulders. “I’m a quick learner.AndI had a pretty great teacher.”
Everything moved seamlessly from there. They transported the bees to the new hive, already filled with frames of brood they had collected from the wall.
April and Tillie parted ways with the group, while J.P. helped Nora get everything loaded into the back of his truck, taking several trips to get it all packed in.
“Are we taking these over to your apiary?”
Nora issued J.P. a look of pure shock. “Apiary? Have you been doing some beekeeping research, J.P.?”
“A little. I might have picked up a book at the library.”
Her heart swelled two times its original size. She couldn’t believe the guy who had given her nothing but grief about her beekeeping now knew the proper name for the location where she kept her hives. It was like a little gift, to feel seen and acknowledged by him in this way.
“I’m impressed,” she said. “But no, we can’t add them to mine. There’s an old saying in beekeeping that you can either move bees three feet or three miles. Anything in between disorients them. My place is too close.”
“So we need to find somewhere a little further away?”
“We do. Any ideas?”
J.P.’s lips tipped into a grin. “I think I just might have the perfect place.”
Chapter Twenty
Pearl and Nora were already acquainted with one another through Nora’s house cleaning business. Even so, it felt like J.P. was bringing someone home to meet his mother. He hadn’t done that since Kenzie.
The act of driving side by side in the truck made anticipation bubble within him like a fizzy champagne.
There was a vibration of nerves skittering just under the surface of his skin. He wanted to blame that buzzing on the bees, but they were carefully secured in the truck bed, not in the confines of the cab that now felt suddenly smaller with Nora sharing it. Her mood was so big, so full. He could sense the pride pulsing out of her with each breath she took, each massive smile pulling ear to ear. There was a gratitude deep within him, knowing he got to share this with her. Got to see her in action, doing what she loved most. And he was more than a spectator in her joy; he was a full on participant.
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little pleased that he’d been the one to find the queen. You would have thought he’d gifted Nora a rare diamond ring. The expression of sheer amazement was the most beautiful look on her, and it made J.P. want to continue doing things for her that made her feel that way.
