The biggest stick was flaming well when I lifted it into the air and swept it mildly enough to feed it, feed it, coax it hotter and hotter. Then I held it aloft as I scooped dirt and stomped on the fire I’d built.

“What did you do that for?” Samuel said. “That was a good fire!”

“And I got what I needed. Now stay right here and don’t move.”

The hive was so close to the trail that I thought maybe I should send Samuel farther away, but I didn’t know any words that would make him leave. So again I said, “Don’t move,” before I turned up my collar and pulled on my gloves and crept through the thicket around the oak hive. As I came closer to it, I held the torch straight up until it began to go out, then blew the last of the flame away so it gave just smoke.

With the smoking branch in front of me, I edged up to the oak tree, the hive in its big, dark mouth humming away, and then gently poked the stick into the hole, not too far, just enough to fill the hive with smoke, which would make the bees drowsy and dumb.

After a bit, a few stumbled out, stunned, and flew lazily to the ground.

Others, coming in from their work, spun crazily, looking for a foe, but I stood as still as a broken clock and waited until the hive grew quiet.

Then I pulled the stick away and plunged it, hot end first, into the ground and slowly reached my gloved hand into the hive, feeling for the comb.

The bees in the hive covered my glove until it trembled with their sleepy buzzing.

I could feel the comb where they stored the honey that fed them all winter, that kept them alive in the year’s hardest, leanest months, that was meant for them and their young. And I felt their terror. Felt their panic as they choked and nodded in the smoke, their queen weeping. And I let go of the comb and slowly drew my empty hand from the hive.

It was covered with bees slowly regaining their wits, baffled by the smoke but waking as I watched. I shook my hand gently as I backed away from the hive and some of them fell softly away. Others clung without moving and I knew they had stung my glove and died doing it. Which made my heart hurt.

“Go, go,” I said to Samuel as I cleared the thicket. “Quickly now.” And off he went, up the path ahead of me.

Oddly, it was only then, as I was leaving, that a lone bee flew up and stung me on the cheek.