Recorded Books Inc. - A Recipe for Bees

Praise for A Recipe for Bees

A Recipe for Bees confirms Anderson-Dargatz as a novelist with staying power. [It] is a richly textured, life-affirming novel teeming with the small, hard-won victories that make life not only bearable, but glorious.

The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo)

A heady blend of earthy realism and romantic exoticism. What Gail Anderson-Dargatz has achieved is a commemoration of a lifestyle and a collection of characters that live on when the novel is finished.

Elm Street

The quirky textureMargaret Laurence meets Gabriel Garcia Mrquezsucceeds with elegance and energy.

The Times Literary Supplement

I ended up reading the book in one sitting, hardly noticing that I was getting burned by the Long Beach sun.

Geist

Anyone who thinks rural characters in Canadian fiction are dull and bland should pick up one of Gail Anderson-Dargatzs novels.

The Financial Post

VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 1999

Copyright 1998 Gail Anderson-Dargatz

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 1999. Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 1998. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Vintage Canada and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.

www.randomhouse.ca

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Excerpt from The Georgics by Virgil, translated by L.P. Wilkinson (Penguin Classics, 1982) copyright L.P. Wilkinson, 1982. Used by permission.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Anderson-Dargatz, Gail, 1963
A recipe for bees / Gail Anderson-Dargatz.

eISBN: 978-0-307-36386-2

I. Title.
PS8551.N3574R42 1999 C813.54 C99-931127-1
PR9199.3.A52R425 1999

v3.1

For Eric and Irene

A GREAT MANY people have participated with me in the writing of this novel, providing details and suggestions. In particular my thanks go to Alberta provincial apiculturist Kenn Tuckey, beekeeper Ted Kay, and my own beekeeper, Floyd Anderson-Dargatz, for their help with the beekeeping passages, and to the staff at the Kamloops Museum and the R.J. Haney Heritage Park in Salmon Arm for helping me place this novel in time. I am also indebted to Diane Martin and Louise Dennys for their loving approach to editing. Bible quotes in this novel were taken from the Jerusalem Bible; the Ryrie Study Bible; the Thompson Chain-Reference Bible; and the New Marked Reference Bible, edited by J. Gilchrist Lawson. Virgils recipe for bees is taken from The Georgics, translated by L.P. Wilkinson and published by Penguin. Sections of this novel were first published in the story Turtle Valley in Canadian Forum magazine. Photos in this novel are from my parents photo albums. My most heartfelt appreciation goes to Eric and Irene Anderson for the lives theyve led and the stories they tell.

H AVE I TOLD you the drones penis snaps off during intercourse with the queen bee? asked Augusta.

Yes, said Rose. Many times.

Before Augusta dragged her luggage upstairs to the apartment, before she checked on the welfare of her elderly husband, Karl, even before she hugged and greeted her seven kittens, she had made her way, with the aid of a cane, across the uneven ground to inspect the hive of bees she kept in Roses garden.

They wont mate at all unless theyre way up in the sky, said Augusta. The drones wont take a second look at a queen coming out of a hive. But when shes thirty, a hundred, feet up in the air, then she gets their interest. Theyll seek her out, flying this way and that to catch her scent until theres a V of droneslike the V of geese following a leader in the skychasing along behind her.

You were going to tell me about Joe, said Rose.

As soon as the drone mounts and thrusts, hes paralysed, his genitals snap off, and he falls backwards a hundred feet to his death.

I dont want to hear about it.

In late summer, hives full of ripening honey emitted a particular scent, like the whiff of sweetness Augusta used to catch passing by the candy-apple kiosk at the fall fair, but without the tang of apples to it. She should have been smelling this now, but instead the hive gave off the vinegar-and-almond scent of angry bees. They buzzed loudly, boiling in the air in front of the hive like a pot of simmering toffee. There were far more guard bees than usual, standing at attention at the mouth of the hive.

Somethings been after the bees, said Augusta. She took a step forward to examine them, but several bees flew straight at her, warning her off. Ill have to look at them later, she said. When theyve settled down.

She turned to the balcony of her apartment, directly above the garden. Do you think Karl remembers today is our anniversary?

He hasnt said anything to me, said Rose. Later that evening, though, Augusta would learn that Rose had hidden Karls flowers in her fridge. He had walked up and down the roadsides and into the vacant lots, searching for pearly everlastings, sweet tiny yellow flowers with white bracts that bloomed from midsummer right on into winter, and held their shape and colour when dried. They were the flowers Karl had picked for Augustas wedding bouquet forty-eight years before. He had brought the flowers to Roses apartment in a vase and asked her to hide them in her fridge until later that day.

Youd think hed remember, wouldnt you? said Augusta. Especially after everything thats happened these past three weeks.

Youd think.

You can hear it, you know.

What?

The snapping. If youre listening for it, you can hear a sharp crack when the drones penis breaks off.

Oh, God.

Rose followed Augusta as she headed through the sliding glass doors into Roses apartment to retrieve her luggage. Can you carry this one upstairs? she asked Rose. And this one? I can only manage the one bag with this cane of mine.

Rose took the bags, one in each hand. But you were going to tell me the story, about seeing Joe again.

Not now, Rose. I want to see if Joys phoned with news about Gabe.

But you promised.

Well have plenty of time later.

Youd go and tell something like that to some strange woman on the train, but you wont tell your best friend.

I like Esther. I think well be seeing a lot more of her. I promised to show her my hive.