“When I was first coming out as trans, I hung out with the few trans people I met. But I realized pretty quickly that it was only being trans that we had in common. So then I started finding people who were also politically radical, and Black, and queer, et cetera. And the more kinds of people I met as my authentic self, the more I felt like I could be that and still have my people around me. My hive.”

She winked and Greta grinned.

“Are you the queen?”

“Obviously. Okay, you ready for some honey?”

“What is this?”

“A centrifuge. You spin it and the honey flies out of the comb. Then we collect it.”

“You made a centrifuge?”

“Well, it’s really an old rain barrel I found, but yeah, I put a crank on top so it can spin and made little things to fasten the combs in there. You wanna spin it?”

“Okay.”

Veronica fastened the top on the barrel and showed Greta how to spin it. They checked every minute or so until Veronica deemed the honey extracted.

“See, there’s just pollen left.” She pointed to some yellow residue on the wax. “It’s got carbohydrates in it, so they’ll eat that if we put it back in the hive.”

She slid the frames back into the hive one by one. They had only extracted honey from about a third of them. Veronica explained that they couldn’t do them all at once because the bees needed something to be working on.

At the bottom of the barrel, honey gleamed.

“That is amazing,” Greta said for the one thousandth time since they’d arrived.

Veronica grinned. “Well, aren’t you delightfully easy to impress.”

“What? No! This is legitimately amazing!”

“I agree.” Veronica pulled a large glass jar from her bag. “Hold that steady for me, will you?” She upended the plastic barrel, and honey poured into the jar. “Now we can take this home and strain it. I used to do all of it out here, but someone kept stealing my strainer. Grab that bucket?”

Greta picked up the bucket with the wax from uncapping and followed Veronica out of the garden.

“Some people think that bees have healing properties,” Veronica told her as they walked back. “That spending a lot of time around them improves your health. Their buzzing creates a frequency that heals.”

“I’ve heard that about cats’ purring.”

“Yeah, me too. Apparently some people with asthma can be treated by breathing beehive air too. I dunno, but I believe it. I always feel better after I’ve been with the bees.”

“That’s how I feel about my plants,” Greta agreed. “I miss them. Is that weird?”

“Not to me.”