The Keeper

Few bees survived that winter when the beast laid waste to the hive. Now their numbers dwindled further. Their home hung frozen, a husk cracked open.

Weary and despondent, they clustered in the cold damp to decide their fate.

Some wished to rebuild, others to move on from the dark forest. But the clever among them spoke of something different. Something more.

Not a new hive, nor a swarm. A being that would keep them. Watch over them. Protect them from the wild world and their own fragility.

A keeper.

The cleverest among them conceived of this being. No mere bee: it was neither drone nor queen nor anything that resembled them.

It would be much larger and stand upon two legs. A body without fur. It would have teeth like the animals that prowled the forest—yet gentle teeth, made for speaking, not for tearing or rending. Instead of claws, it would have ten, soft digits with which to handle its creators.

Lastly, the being would rely upon their honey. They would be bound together by need.

And so the bees made their keeper. He was tall and gentle. When he opened his milky eyes, he greeted them with a voice like rustling leaves. He bent his long spidery hands to the hive, nimble fingers mending what was broken.

The bees looked upon the keeper and were afraid.

But in time they grew to love him. And the keeper cared for them and loved them in return. He tended to their needs and spoke to them in their tongue.

Some of the bees fell into a state of worship. The keeper was more clever and able than all the bees combined.

Yet there were those among the bees who doubted the keeper's absolute might. They saw what the keeper was and what he was not. They whispered amongst themselves. There were only two ways the bees could control such a creature: by sting or by honey.

Still others sensed they might unwittingly harm the keeper. And so these bees approached him and said, We shall shed our stingers for you so that you need not fear us.

And the keeper nodded.

And the bees said, We shall raise our young without stingers, so they may never wound you.

And the keeper nodded.

In time, the keeper spent his days among the stingless ones, for those with stingers were to him as the thorn is to the flesh. The stingless bees bred their offspring as they promised, trusting the keeper's care. But the bees with stingers balked at the change.

A bee without a stinger is no bee at all, they murmured to themselves.

And so the hive divided into two kinds. Yet both grew in number and prospered. And they were alike in their reverence of the keeper.

The bees fed their keeper, and the keeper made them whole.

Seasons passed. The keeper learned much through his work repopulating the bees.

He built a dwelling for them to stay warm in together. He found wildflowers and planted them near their new hive for the bees to feed from. He kept the forest critters at bay by day and night, using fire and stone. And the bees repaid him in song and honey.

But the keeper did not stay bound to the hive for long. With time, he learned to trap animals and tasted their flesh. He found berries high in the frozen forest and bore them back down to his den.

But the bees did not care for the berries, for they carried the scent of the ancient beast from that terrible winter. And they did not care for the keeper to eat foods apart from their honey.

You must not return to the place where you found this fruit, the bees urged their keeper.

And the keeper nodded.

Then the bees said, You must not eat the flesh of vermin, for you may fall ill and doom us all.

And the keeper nodded.

He learned much from his bees. He learned their concerns. He learned their fear.

One day, the keeper found a road, and there he met other beings like him. Beings who traveled the world and carried with them unusual objects and belongings. Though they did not speak like bees, their tongues came easily to him.

The traveling merchants found him strange. The keeper found them wondrous.

From their wagons the merchants laid out marvels from faraway places. The keeper showed them his golden honey and traded it for cheese and books—stories of conquest, pictures of castles and kings—flint for fire, leaf to smoke, toy soldiers to line his den with.

They taught him the art of trade, that he might keep more bees and thus draw more honey: tools to raise a cabin, frames for comb, tin vessels to catch rain.

Others shared the craft of farming: how to grow sweeter wildflowers and plant fragrant fruit. He traded honey for boxed plum trees with pink blossoms to feed his hives.

And the most useful among them, the builders, showed the keeper how to fashion hives that made tending simple. How to breed the bees and manage their queens. How to shape pots for honey and cast melters for wax.

As the seasons passed, the keeper taught his bees to make more honey, in new colors and flavors. The hives grew in number, scale, and variety.

The bees in turn grew more clever and capable in their making. They took forms never seen before. Some pearly and long, bred for the cold. Some wiry and black. They saw their honey poured into jars and sang with pride.

The keeper recorded his varieties in journals that filled his study. And by candlelight, he named them all and drew them in neat rows, each fine and intricate.

Tales of advanced bees attracted more exotic traders: poets, priests, and masons.

One desert merchant made a pilgrimage to the farm. He spent a fortnight with the keeper building a tiny palace for their favorite breed. Together they installed arches, spires, and copper spigots.

And how the honey flowed. Trader wagons appeared now with regularity. Strange faces became frequent guests.

The valley came to be known for its honey and mead. Lords and kings sent advisors to consult with the keeper about his breeding methods and inventions. They brought him rugs and saffron and took home trunks filled with sweet gold.

The bees flourished and multiplied. Some grew stronger, others quicker. Content with prosperity and work, most knew not the old ways of survival. Instead they knew peace and calm. All of them feasted on the fruits of his trade.

Yet the eldest bees who had refused to surrender their stingers kept mostly to themselves. Though the hives had never been fuller, these bees sang less than before.

The keeper noticed the wild bee honey did not sell as well as the others. But he made no comment.

Sometimes he would enjoy it alone on a piece of toast with brie. The taste reminded him of youth.

At night the merchants would gather behind the keeper's cabin for song and tales. They played lutes and struck drums. They roasted honey-glazed geese over the fire and filled the night with sound and smoke.

The bees would all watch from the dark.

In the glow of the campfire, the men would dance and cheer. They drank the keeper's mead and toasted his health.

When they asked where he first came from, the keeper explained that the bees had made him. And when the merchants laughed at this, he joined in their laughter.

The bees would all watch from the dark.

As the banter stretched deep into night and faded to murmur, another shape lumbered through the woods. Something larger. Something ancient.

The bees would all watch from the dark.

After the first hive vanished overnight, the bees feared the worst.

The men lured back the beast from the forest, they cried.

But the keeper shook his head. He knew the hive was safe.

And the bees said, The ancient evil has found us once again.

But the keeper shook his head. He felt the twinge of guilt.

Still the vanishings continued. Hives were carried off in the night, their places empty come morning. They were taken to foreign lands through secret deals struck with select merchants. Wagons loaded with sleeping bees.

The keeper knew how to keep bees, and now he was a keeper of secrets.

One day the following spring, a monk from the distant north brought him a jar of rare mountain honey. It was made by one of the pearly breeds originated from his farm.

The keeper sat in his study and cradled the jar in his long fingers. He opened it and inhaled the aroma of trees grown under thin sunlight, from a place just beyond his imagining.

He yearned to see these faraway lands with his own milky eyes. To sense the world his bees now inhabited.

But duty kept the keeper. He would not leave the farm. He would taste the world in what he traded.

The keeper closed the jar of mountain honey and set it by his journals.

At sundown, a bee caught its strange scent through the open window.

When the remaining hives finally learned of his new enterprise, they confronted the keeper as one.

Why would you betray us? the bees asked.

The keeper insisted the departed hives had wanted to go. He had bred them for other places. These bees had volunteered to venture out in the wild world.

And the bees asked, What more will you do to us, to trade for games and silk?

And the keeper shook his head, and from his bees he learned shame.

Now, to some bees the vanishings were a kind of salvation, perhaps a passage to their creator. To others, a mighty adventure, a chance to set wing somewhere new.

But to the eldest among them, the last of those with stingers, the vanishings were a horror—an unknown fate for their kind, beyond their grasp or will.

And so those who would not be taken and trafficked away began to gather in secret.

The wild bees clustered together in the original hive to decide their fate. They murmured of escape. The stinger-bearers would flee, slip away into the night. Build a new hive elsewhere, one free from the keeper's reach.

When the chosen night came, the wild bees swarmed from the farm like a mighty, humming wind and vanished into the dark forest.

From his study, the keeper watched them leave but did not interfere. He sat in the quiet candlelight.

The next morning, the merchants offered to track down the missing hive, even despite its mediocre honey.

But the keeper was made to protect the bees, not to keep them as prisoners. Though he was their guardian, he did not think himself their master. And so the keeper refused the help.

Sensing the mood had passed, the merchants loaded the trunks and drums onto their wagons and moved on. Only the rustling of the forest remained to accompany him.

And thus the keeper learned grief.

When the bear appeared the next night, it arrived with the hunger of the world upon its back.

The beast lumbered down from the black trees and into the farm, its nose turned toward the great rivers of honey that had tempted it for months.

And the keeper stood up in his study and walked slowly out of his cabin to meet the bear. He stood against it, his hands raised, his voice low and even.

But the bear could see that the keeper's teeth were not made for tearing and rending, that his claws were not made for slashing. And so the bear struck him down.

The bees whirled out and raged when the bear plunged his maw into their hives. But the stingless varieties could do no harm to the snarling beast. They buzzed and swarmed and threw their bodies against their ancient foe, and the bear cared not for their hollow fury.

But the wild bees who had fled the night prior, those who still carried the sting of their forebears, returned to the farm at the sound of the chaos and their warring sisters.

They swarmed and they stung. And they stung. And they stung.

The bear, wounded and panicked, turned at last and retreated into the dark forest.

As the sun rose, the keeper lay still amongst the ruins of the hives. Dried honey streaked the ground like blood. The surviving bees shrouded his crushed body like a humming veil. Their protector fallen, their home undone.

Far beyond the flower fields and orchards, beyond the carnage and the forest, the wild bees flew free. They sought their new home along the trails of old, familiar scents.

And further still: pearly mountain bees traversed the cold woods of the north. They searched for blossoms so fragrant and ephemeral, their honey was coveted across all the kingdoms of men.

In the fullness of time, the bees would murmur again of forgotten lessons and ancient perils. They would whisper of a keeper who long ago looked after bees and made them whole. Of what he was and what he was not.

And some among them, the cleverest bees, would begin to wonder: if it were possible, how a keeper might be made.