Flora drew on all her strength to keep up with her mated daughter, but the swarm was young and fast, and she could only hold on to the tail of it as they flew.

The great blank fields fell back and the forest came closer. She could no longer feel her body, and used all her strength to remember the destination.

The hollow tree. The forest.

A ragged silver-winged forager emerged from the air and flew beside her.

“You danced well. You have served your hive.” Lily 500 smiled at Flora. Praise end your days.

Praise end your days, Flora thought back to her, and the words were sweet.

Her wingbeats slowed and the swarm moved on without her. She saw them enter the forest on the edge of the Weald. She smelled the warming earth, and the deep fragrance of the trees, and it was easy to follow the swarm by the musk of the mated Queen’s scent, and the Holy Chord rising from the forest. Below her on the ground tiny blue speedwell flowers opened their little mouths as they felt the bees passing, and the air was laced with fragrance.

Flora’s vision sharpened. Her body slowed and weakened, yet still she watched in eagerness as the swarm searched through the trees. She heard the sanitation workers calling out to each other, repeating her coordinates as they drew closer and closer—and then there was a shout and a great cheering, for they had found the hollow beech.

My daughter, my fierce, beloved daughter—

The dark and glorious princess flew down and settled on a branch. While scouts went in to check the tree, thousands of bees hovered around her while they waited, humming the Holy Chord. Some settled beside her and began to lick the sperm from her body, and the strong scent of the kin of Flora mingled with the sweetness of the kin of Linden and floated up through the leaves of the forest.

The scouts reemerged, and began to lay their homecoming marker on the lip of the hole in the tree. The bees cried out in joy, to the forest and the sky, “Long live the Queen! Long live the Queen!” Again and again they cheered, and Flora wanted to join with it but all she could do was gaze on the newly crowned Queen, her heart filled with love. She watched the new Flora ladies-in-waiting kiss and lick her, and then they escorted her into her new home.

A new Devotion drifted through the forest, the scent of a wild, dark young Queen, strong and fertile. The sound of sisters rejoicing stirred the leaves and drew nectar from the flowers. Bees streamed down from the bright air into the dark fissure in the beech tree.

Flora could no longer move, but she smelled speedwell, and bluebells, and cyclamen, and felt the cool, smooth leaves of aconite holding her body. She wrapped herself in the rich perfume of the forest floor and watched until the last bee flew into the tree. Then she rested.

Epilogue

THE APPLE TREES WERE IN FULL BLOOM AS THE MAN, HIS wife, and their two teenage children came through the orchard. They paused near the old hive. The man let a long coil of black ribbon unspool from his hand.

“So, this is a condition of Grandpa’s will. It’s from the olden days, when people thought the bees needed to be told important family news. Births, deaths, and marriages.” The man unfolded a piece of paper. “He even wrote it all out.”

Then he stepped forward to the hive and tied the black ribbon around it, before knocking on it softly, three times.

“It is my sad duty to inform you,” he read, “that your beekeeper, my father, has died. He will no longer be taking care of you, and he asks you to be patient with your new custodian.”

The tone in his voice made his wife put her arms around him. He held her as he folded the paper back into his pocket, then addressed the hive again.

“And I have something else to say, for myself. I am very sorry that I have sold this orchard, and—I ask your forgiveness for what will happen.” He wiped his eyes.

“Dad.” His daughter crouched down and put her ear against the hive. “Listen.”

“Careful!” But he too crouched down and put his ear to the wood. They looked at each other. Then he moved around and looked into the hole on the landing board. His wife drew back.

“Please, both of you, be careful—”

“I can’t hear a thing,” he said. “I cannot see a single bee.”

His son smiled. “Dad! They went with him!”

The family looked up into the bright and empty sky.

Acknowledgments

For making it happen: my agents Simon Trewin, in London, and Dorian Karchmar, in New York. Thank you both so much.

For making it better: my editor, Lee Boudreaux—an education and a pleasure to work with you; my thanks also to Clare Reihill for her insight, and to Iris Tupholme for her support.

My thanks to all the teams at Ecco, 4th Estate, and HarperCollins Canada, and to my foreign rights agent at WME, Annemarie Blumenhagen. For the two superb covers: Steve Attardo and Alison Saltzman for Ecco, and Jo Walker for 4th Estate.

For good fellowship: Richard Skinner and the Faber group of 2012, with honorable mention to the most generous polymath that is Cal Moriarty.

For sharing her knowledge and guiding my research: Dr. Margaret Couvillon. I am also indebted to the work of biologists Dr. Francis Ratnieks, Dr. Thomas Seeley, and Bert Holldobler and E. O. Wilson. All mistakes are my own.

For support in many forms: Isabelle Grey, Heidi Berry, Kate Duthie, Sasha Slorer, Debs Shuter, Debra Gonzalez, Maggie Doherty, Linda King, Emmy Minton, Megan and Danis Dauksta, Janet Lyon, Emerald-Jane Turner, Sarah Kowitz, and for his words dronewood and dronesong, Sean Borodale.

For lighting my path: Professor Julia Briggs and beekeeper Angie Biltcliffe.

Love and thanks to my family, including early reader Gordon Paull; early listener Rider Peacock (who advised more violence); Jackson Peacock (for his sketch of the hive); and most of all to my daughter, India Rose, for all the ways in which she has enabled me to write this book.

Finally, my love and gratitude to my husband, Adrian Peacock: for everything.

About the Author

LALINE PAULL studied English at Oxford, screenwriting in Los Angeles, and theater in London. She lives in England with her husband, photographer Adrian Peacock, and their three children.

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Credits

Cover design by Steve Attardo

Cover artwork: detail of “Bees and Bee-keeping,” from The Young Landsman, (Vienna, 1845), photographed by Matthias Trentsensky © by the Bridgeman Art Library/Getty Images

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE BEES. Copyright © 2014 by Laline Paull. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.