Beekeeping for Beginners by Laurie R. King Page B

Langstroth hives, to restore the apiary to full strength. (In a curious parallel, the designer of those hives had himself felt the grim attraction of a voluntary end.) The third vial held a small amount of nearly clear liquid: It would transform me into a mere problem of disposal and a pang of sorrow for those few individuals who held me in affection.
    That it might also bring a sense of rejoicing to those who wished the world ill was one of the main reasons I had not made use of the bottle before that day.
    I was in my fifty-fifth year on this earth. For nearly forty of those years, my life had been my work. Even during the dozen years of my ostensible retirement to Sussex, I had remained active—indeed, eight months previous, a lengthy case had led to the destruction of a major spy-ring, my contribution to the nation’s security. Then during the autumn, while the guns of France drew into place and plans were made for what the deluded imagined would be a brief war, I managed to keep myself in a position of usefulness.
    But in January, one of my little victories, and its accompanying minor injury, had come to the attention of the powers-that-be. Rather than gratitude, their response had been one of alarm, that a person of my eminence might have been snuffed out by a stray bullet—or worse, taken captive and used as a hostage. One might have thought I was the young Prince of Wales.
    My head had been patted, my protests ignored, I had been sent home to Sussex. To my bees, my studies, and the services of my long-time housekeeper, Mrs Hudson. To a soul-grinding boredom and a pervading sense of uselessness.
    All my life I have battled grey tedium. The challenges of mental work and physical exertion, the escape of music and the occasional dose of drugs have aided me, but always I could reassure myself that the ennui was temporary, that it would not be long before some criminal laid his scent before me, and I would be off.
    Now my so-called friends had conspired against me, coddling me for my own good.
    Fifty-four is not old.
    I found tedium mentally trying, but physically agonising. As winter turned to spring, it became apparent that the world had finished with me; the only thing required of me was a decision to agree.
    So: that absurdly sunshiny April day, with the throb of distant guns an ominous basso beneath the rhythm of waves against chalk cliffs, and a small, clear bottle in the old rucksack at my feet as my hands used the fine camel-hair brush to daub paint on individual honeybees, and my colour-assisted eyes tracked their subsequent flight, and my mind circled ever closer to a decision.
    To be interrupted by slow footsteps, approaching across open ground.
    After twelve years in Sussex, I was well accustomed to busybodies. Everyone in the county knew who I was, and although they took care to protect me from the intrusion of outsiders, they felt no compunction to offer the same protection from their own attentions. Stepping into the village shop for Mrs Hudson would bring a knowing wink and a heavy-handed jest about investigating the choices of soap powder. If I paused to examine an unfamiliar variety of shoe-print on the ground, a short time later I would look back to find a knot of villagers gazing down to see what had drawn my attention. One time, a casual remark to a passing farmer about the sky—that a storm would arrive by midnight—led to a near-panic throughout the Downland community, until the farmer’s wife had the sense to ring Mrs Hudson and ask if I’d actually intended to warn him that the Kaiser’s troops were lying offshore, waiting for dark.
    Only the pub had proved safe ground: When an Englishman orders a pint, his privacy is sacrosanct.
    Every so often, perhaps once a year, I would become aware of what is known as a “fan.” These were generally village lads with too much time on their hands and too many penny-dreadful novels on their shelves. Trial and error had shown that a terse lecture on