The Beekeeper Mystery Read online

  “That looks just like the honey in the gift shop,” said Violet.

  “And that’s exactly where these jars of honey are going,” said Laura. “Okay, now it’s your turn.” Laura stepped back as the children filled, capped, and labeled the jars. Soon they were all done.

  “When can we eat some?” asked Benny. “I’m getting hungry!”

  “You’re always hungry,” teased Jessie.

  “We have one last very important job,” said Laura. Benny groaned. “Don’t worry,” she said. “This time, the bees do all the work.”

  They put the ten frames back into the white super. Bits of honey still stuck to the wood frames and empty honeycombs. Henry lifted the super. It felt a lot lighter now that they’d extracted the honey. Laura led them far out into a field. Henry set the super down on an old picnic table.

  “We don’t want to do this last step near the house or workshop,” said Laura. “You’ll see why in a minute.” She took the lid off the super. “Quick, take out all the frames and stand them on the table.”

  The children worked fast. “Let’s go!” cried Laura, running. They ran after her until she finally stopped in the shade of a tree several yards away. “We can still see the frames from here,” she said, sitting on the ground. “Now we wait and watch.”

  In a couple of minutes, a bee buzzed around the table. The bee landed on a frame. It seemed to be tasting the frame the way the bee had tasted crumbs of their fudge. “That’s a scout bee,” said Laura. “One of her jobs is finding food.” The bee flew away. “She’s going back to the hive to tell the other bees she found honey.”

  Benny said, “But bees can’t talk.”

  “Not with words,” said Laura. “They do waggle dances and shake dances to tell other bees what food they found and how far away it is.”

  Benny jumped up and waggled his backside while shaking his shoulders. “Like this?” he asked, waggling and shaking around and around them.

  “Look!” Jessie pointed. “More bees.” A few bees flew to the frames. They landed on bits of honey left on the honeycombs, frames, and super. More bees flew in. And more! In less than ten minutes, everything was covered with bees.

  “Our work here is done,” said Laura, brushing grass off her shorts. “By tomorrow those frames won’t have one speck of honey on them.”

  “Well,” said Benny, “if the bees can have a snack, can we?”

  Flashlight in the Dark

  They followed the wonderful smell of fresh-baked bread to the kitchen. Loaves cooled on racks. “I cleaned up,” said Zelda, taking off her apron. She put one fresh loaf in a paper bag. “I’ll take mine home.”

  “Thanks so much for helping,” said Laura. “Stop by the workshop and take a jar of honey.”

  “No, no, no,” said Zelda, hurrying out the door. “I—I’m fine. Bye.”

  The hungry children washed their hands as Laura set out snacks. “Remember, we’ll have dinner in a couple of hours,” said Laura. “You don’t want to fill up.”

  “I’m never full,” said Benny. “Remember, I have an extra honey stomach. A, um…” He searched the whiteboard for the right words. “I have a honey crop!” He took a couple of carrot sticks.

  Jessie opened a container of goat cheese. She spread the tangy cheese inside a celery stick. “Mmm,” she said.

  There was a knock on the door, and Walt walked into the kitchen. “I cleaned up the workshop,” he said.

  “Thanks, Walt,” said Laura. She put a loaf of bread in a bag and handed it to him. “This is for you. And take a couple of jars of honey from the workshop. You earned it.”

  “Thanks, I will,” he said. “But first I’ll go check the hives.” He noticed the children listening. Walt cleared his throat. “Sometimes,” he said, “bees get a little upset when we take frames out of their supers. They don’t much like being disturbed. I mean, how would you like someone coming into your house and moving things around?”

  “I wouldn’t like that,” said Benny, who had his toy cars lined up in his room exactly the way he wanted them.

  “Sometimes,” said Walt, “it’s three days before the bees calm down.” He cleared his throat again like someone not used to talking so much at one time. “And,” he said, “do you remember that big swarm we found this morning? I’m going out to check that new hive we put them in.” He nodded toward Henry. “They went inside because they liked the taste of the peach juice Henry squeezed on the frames. Now I want to make sure those bees stay put. Don’t want them swarming off someplace else. If we can keep those bees happy, they’ll make us some fine honey. Just you wait and see. Well,” he pushed open the door, “see you tomorrow, I guess.”

  When they finished their snacks, Laura worked at the whiteboard writing more beekeeping words and terms. Jessie got busy copying them down in her notebook. Violet and Benny sat at the kitchen table. “Do you want to go with me to the gift shop?” Benny asked Violet.

  As they neared the gift shop, they saw the parking lot full of cars. Inside, there were people everywhere. Noah stood at the register ringing sales as fast as he could. Violet walked behind the counter. “I can bag while you ring,” she said. She set a bunch of Applewood Farm bags on the counter.

  “Here,” said Noah. He handed Violet a stack of the yellow flyers she’d designed. “I’ve been putting a flyer in each bag. People really like these. I’ve heard them talk about sending their kids to Laura’s class.” Violet felt proud each time she put one of her flyers into a bag. With Noah at the cash register and Violet putting items into bags, the line moved much faster.

  Benny walked around. All the shelves they worked so hard to straighten were a mess. Customers left jars of honey next to boxes of candles and T-shirts on top of books. Benny darted around, putting things back where they belonged.

  When the last customer left, Noah leaned against the counter. “I’m pooped!” he said. “People always shop on their way home from work. Thanks for helping.”

  Violet looked at a display of jars of honey on the counter. “These are what we made today,” she said.

  “Was it hard work?” he asked.

  “No,” said Violet, “I mean there’s a lot to do, but it was pretty easy with all of us working together.”

  Benny came over. “Why don’t you like bees?” he asked Noah.

  Violet’s cheeks grew hot. “Benny!” she said. Sometimes her little brother asked people very personal questions. “Maybe Noah doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “It’s okay,” said Noah. “I got stung once. I was around twelve. I’d just mowed our lawn, and I was lifting a pile of grass clippings when—zap! A bee stung my finger. I’ve sort of been afraid of bees ever since.”

  “I was stung once too,” said Violet. “I was barefoot, chasing our dog around the backyard. We ran through a patch of clover and—zing! I stepped on a bee.”

  “Mine hurt,” said Noah.

  “Mine too,” said Violet. “I think part of it was the surprise. Not expecting a bee sting. I mean, I think it hurts worse when I fall off my bike and scrape my knee.”

  Noah laughed. “I fall off my skateboard all the time,” he said. “I’m always trying out new tricks. You can’t learn skateboarding without falling.”

  “Which means,” said Violet, “a little bee sting won’t bother you. If you let Laura and Walt teach you about bees, you’ll learn how to be safe around them.” She thought of the bees out in the field, cleaning honey off the frames. “Benny and I were really close to thousands of bees today. And we didn’t get one single teeny, tiny sting. Not one!”

  Noah thought a while. He looked at the ten-year-old girl and six-year-old boy. If they could do it… “Maybe I’ll try,” he said. “I would like to learn more about how all this honey stuff is made.”

  After dinner Henry and Jessie walked outside. They hoped to see the Milky Way in the night sky.

  A small light moved out in the field. “What’s that?” asked Jessie.

  Henry peered into the dar
kness. “Looks like a flashlight,” he said. “Maybe Walt’s still out checking the hives.”

  “Could it be whoever is causing trouble?” Jessie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Henry said. “But we’re running out of time to solve this mystery.”

  Suddenly a car door closed. “Sounds like someone’s in the gift shop parking lot,” whispered Jessie.

  They walked over. The lot was empty except for Laura’s red truck and a black car. They jumped as the car’s engine roared to life. Its lights flared. As it sped away, moonlight shone on the driver. “Zelda!” said Henry. “What’s she doing here? I thought she went home hours ago.”

  They looked around. The gift shop was closed. The only other building nearby was the workshop. “All the honey we harvested today is still in the workshop,” said Jessie. “That’s the only place she could have been.” They checked, but the workshop was locked.

  “It’s too dark now,” said Henry. “We’ll look around first thing in the morning.”

  At bedtime, snuggled in their bunk beds, Jessie and Henry told Violet and Benny about the strange light in the field and about Zelda sneaking around in the dark. “She acted strange all day,” said Jessie. “She didn’t want to uncap honey from the honeycombs. She didn’t want to crank the extractor. She left before we put the honey into jars.”

  Henry pressed on his pillow until it was the shape he liked. “Maybe the flashlight we saw was Walt checking the hives again,” he said. “He’s worried that we upset the bees when we took the frames out of the super.”

  Benny’s sleepy voice said, “Full frame out, empty frame in.”

  Violet told them about Noah being afraid of bees because he was stung. And about how he wanted to learn more about beekeeping. “Maybe,” she said, “we could help teach him.”

  “Full frame out,” Benny’s soft voice trailed into sleep, “empty frame…”

  Connecting the Clues

  Before breakfast the children went to collect eggs. Most of the hens were already up and out of the coop. Benny made sure a white golf ball was in each cubby. Laura had told him the hens thought the golf balls were eggs. Having them in the cubbies made the hens feel safe to lay their eggs there.

  After breakfast Laura went to her office to make a call. The children walked to the meadow to see if the bees finished cleaning honey from the frames. Benny trailed behind. “Are the bees all gone?” he asked. He didn’t want to get too close to thousands of hungry bees without his bee suit on.

  Jessie took his hand. “If bees are still there,” she said, “we’ll come back this afternoon.”

  But as they neared the table, they did not see one single bee. The children walked closer. Bees had cleaned every bit of honey off the honeycombs, super, and frames. “I wish I could train bees to clean my room,” said Benny.

  They put the ten frames back into the super. Four frames were left over. “Could these be the four missing frames?” asked Jessie. “The ones someone stole from Laura’s super?”

  Henry picked them up. Every frame had a red dot. “These are Applewood frames,” he said.

  “Why would someone steal them,” asked Violet, “then bring them back?”

  “To steal the honey,” said Henry. “These honeycombs were full of honey when they were stolen. Now they’re empty.”

  Laura drove up and climbed down from the truck. “How’d the bees do?” she asked.

  “The bees cleaned everything,” Henry told her. “And someone left your four missing frames.”

  Laura checked the dots. “These are ours, all right,” she said. “But who could have left them?”

  As the children helped load everything into the truck, Jessie said, “Henry and I saw a flashlight out in the field last night. A little later we saw Zelda leaving the parking lot. Do you think she knows something?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” said Laura. “Hop in.”

  Minutes later they pulled into Zelda’s farm next door. A black car sat in the driveway. They walked into the field and past the horses. In the distance they saw Zelda in her beekeeping gear, tending her hives. They stopped, waiting until Zelda saw them. She looked down at the ground and began walking toward them very, very slowly. Her beekeeping veil covered her face. When Zelda reached them, she lifted her veil. Henry saw a rip in her sleeve. A piece of white fabric was missing.

  “You’re the one who cut the chain-link fence!” he said.

  Zelda crossed her arms, covering up the hole in her sleeve. She pursed her lips and then nodded. “I guess you figured it out. I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Why did you do that?” asked Laura. “And why did you take my frames? You have your own hives.”

  “But my hives are new,” Zelda said. “You taught our beekeeping class not to harvest honey from a colony in its first year. You said the bees might not make enough extra honey to live through the winter.”

  “That’s true,” said Laura. “But why take my frames?”

  “You were so…busy,” Zelda sniffed. “Preparing for the new class and all. I didn’t think you’d have time to teach me how to harvest the honey. I—I decided to try doing it myself.” She wiped her eyes. “I cut the fence near your hives, so you’d think thieves stole your frames. I—I harvested the honey from your honeycombs. That’s why I didn’t take the honey you and the children harvested. I felt so bad, so I tried to return the frames, but there were always people around. I was afraid someone would catch me. Finally, last night, I sneaked into the pasture and left the frames with the others. I hoped you wouldn’t notice.”

  Jessie tried her hardest not to feel sorry for Zelda. Zelda stole. Zelda lied. Zelda was pushy and rude. Still, Zelda looked so sad. Like she was truly sorry. Jessie couldn’t help feeling a teeny bit sorry for her.

  “That’s not the worst of what I’ve done,” said Zelda.

  “There’s more?” Laura’s voice was stern. “I thought we were friends.”

  “We are, we are,” said Zelda. “It’s just…you got me so interested in beekeeping. I wanted to try everything right away. But you weren’t giving another adult class. That’s why I volunteered to help with Applewood’s bees. I loved having you teach me every day. But then,” she looked at the Aldens, “these children came. You didn’t have time for me anymore.” She blew her nose. “And when I asked you to teach me how to trap a swarm…”

  Violet gasped. “That’s why you parked the truck full of honeycombs near that tree full of bees?”

  “Yes,” Zelda said, “I did. I had seen the swarm the day before. I thought I could trap some of the bees by parking your truck nearby. I tried to catch the bees in a net as they flew to the honey. But I couldn’t. And the swarm started to get under the tarp. I never saw so many bees! I didn’t mean to let them steal your honey. I hid when all of you rode up on your bikes.”

  Jessie stepped forward. “Did you ruin Laura’s flyers?” she asked. “Were you trying to stop Laura from teaching children?”

  Zelda looked confused. “Flyers? I never touched any flyers.” She took Laura’s hand. “Please forgive me,” she said. “I’ll do anything to make this up to you.”

  Laura thought for a moment. “I’m pretty angry right now,” she said. “And disappointed. I wish you had talked to me about this. But I do believe you’re sorry for the trouble you caused.”

  “I am, I truly am,” said Zelda.

  “Okay,” said Laura. “Here’s what we’re going to do. A lot of children are signing up for my junior beekeeping class. I’ll have to give more than one class. But I can only do that if I have a helper. A good helper. Someone who knows about beekeeping. Sometimes,” said Laura, “the best way to learn is to teach. Are you interested?”

  Zelda smiled through her tears. “Really?” she asked.

  “Really,” said Laura. “You’ll start a week from Saturday.”

  Laura pulled up her truck to Applewood’s workshop. As the children helped unload the frames and super, Laura looked at her watch. “Would
you put these things inside with the bee supplies?” Laura asked.

  As she drove off, Benny raced to open the workshop door. A piece of paper was taped to the door. He tried to read the words written in red ink. Benny was pretty good at reading books. But it was too hard to read handwriting.

  Jessie went over and pointed to the words as she read them so Benny could follow along. “‘Gone to mend fence between our place and Zelda’s,’” read Jessie. “‘Out where the swarm was. Walt.’”

  Violet thought the curly way Walt wrote a and s looked familiar. “Wait a second,” she said, running to the farmhouse. She came back waving a yellow sheet of paper. It was one of the ruined flyers. “Look,” she said, pointing to the lettering. “This is the same handwriting that’s on these flyers!”

  Jessie snapped her fingers. “Walt used a red pen to draw a circle around the hive’s entrance.”

  “I remember,” said Henry. “I squeezed peach juice around that circle.”

  The children carried the frames and super inside to the bee supply corner. Henry strode over to the pile of bikes and pulled one out. “We need to talk to Walt,” he said.

  The four children biked across the farm to the far fence. They passed the new hive they made for the swarm. Busy bees flew in and out. They kept riding to where Walt’s black truck was parked under the big tree where the swarm had been. He was mending the fence and turned when he heard the bikes. The children looked serious. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “We need to ask you something,” said Jessie, holding up his note. “Did you write this?”

  “Yup,” he said. “That’s my name right there at the bottom.”

  Violet held up the yellow flyer. “Did you ruin Laura’s flyers?” she asked.

  Suddenly the old man’s face changed. He looked like a small child caught doing something wrong. “I reckon you got me,” he said. “I’m not going to lie. I did it.”