Huber not only studied the bees, he also did what he could to improve their lot. He set about constructing a new type of beehive.
For many years, people’s contact with bees was limited to the harvest of natural hives, crescent-shaped honeycombs, built by the bees themselves on branches or in hollows. But with time, some people became so obsessed with the bees’ gold that they wanted to keep them like domestic animals. Attempts were made to build ceramic beehives, but with little success, and then the straw hive was developed, which was the most common in Europe in Huber’s day. In my district they still predominated, they blended in like part of the wildlife in the fields and on the roadsides. I had never before reflected upon these hives, not before now, reading Huber’s book, but they had their shortcomings. It was difficult to inspect the inside of the straw hive and when the honey was to be harvested, it had to be pressed out of the honeycombs, destroying eggs and larvae in the process, so that the honey was impure. Not to mention that the honeycombs themselves were destroyed. The bees’ home.
To harvest the honey it was, in other words, necessary to deprive the bees of their basis for survival.
Huber set out to change this. He developed a hive that was easier to harvest. It opened up like a book where each leaf of the book was a frame for larvae and honey: the movable-frame hive.
I studied the pictures of Huber’s hive in the book, the frames, the visually beautiful but patently inexpedient design of the leaves. It had to be possible to develop this further, to work out a solution that was better, so the harvesting could be done without hurting the bees and the beekeeper could more effectively inspect and keep an eye on the queen, larvae and production. Suddenly I noticed that I was trembling with excitement. This was what I wanted, this was where my passion lay. I was unable to take my eyes off the drawings, off the bees. I wanted to go in there. Into the hive!
Chapter 12
TAO
“One, two, three—jump!”
We followed the tire ruts inwards across the fields. Wei-Wen walked between Kuan and me. He was wearing my old red scarf around his throat. He loved it, wanted to wear it every day, but was only allowed when nobody else could see. It was awarded as a kind of badge of honor, not a dress-up garment. But I liked that he wore it, perhaps it would inspire him, make him want to have one of his own someday.
Wei-Wen was holding each of us by the hand and demanded that we pull him up through the air in long jumps forward. “More. More.” The scarf was blown upwards into his face, almost covering it, hiding it and without thinking he pushed it aside.
“Look!” he shouted again and again and pointed. “Look!” At the trees, the sky and the flowers. Being out here was new for him, the fields were usually a place he observed from the window, before he was forced out the door to get to school on time or lifted into bed in the evening.
We were going to walk to a hilltop not far from the forest and eat there. We could see it from our house, it was located no more than three hundred meters away, so it was not a long walk for Wei-Wen, and we knew that up there we would have a nice view of both the city and the fields. We had packed fried rice, tea, a blanket and a tin of plums we had been saving for a very special day. We would then take out the pen and paper, and sit in the shade and work. I hoped I’d manage to teach him the numbers up to ten. It would be easier today. Wei-Wen was well rested. So was I.
“One, two, three—jump!”
We pulled him up into the air again, this had to be for the fifth or sixth time.
“Higher!” he shouted.
Our slightly defeated gazes met above his head. Then we lifted him, yet another time. He would never tire of it, we knew that. It was in the nature of a three-year-old never to tire. And he was used to getting his way.
“Imagine when he doesn’t have us all to himself any longer,” I said to Kuan.
“That will be tough on him,” he said and smiled.
We were very close now, just a few more months, and then we would have enough money. All the extra money we had went to the battered tin box in the refrigerator. When we could demonstrate a sufficient amount of savings, we would receive the permit. 36,000 yuan was the requirement. We had 32,476. And it was urgent, because soon we would be too old. The age limit was thirty years old and we were both twenty-eight.
Wei-Wen was to have a sibling. It would presumably be a shock, having to share.
I tried to release his hand.
“Now you can walk by yourself a little, Wei-Wen.”
“Nooo!”
“Yes. Just a bit. To that tree there.” I pointed to a tree fifty meters away.
“Which one?”
“That one over there.”
“But they’re all the same.”
I was unable to keep from smiling, he was right. I looked at Kuan. He grinned at me, his face open and happy. He was not angry because we were here, but in fact seemed satisfied with the compromise. He was, like me, determined for this to be a good day.
“Carry me!” Wei-Wen squealed and attached himself to my leg.
I shook myself free.
“Look. Take my hand.”
But he kept whining.
“Carry me!”
Then suddenly he was flying through the air, as Kuan hoisted him easily up onto his shoulders.
“There. Now I can be a camel and you can be the rider.”
“What is a camel?”
“A horse, then.”
He neighed and Wei-Wen laughed. “You have to run, horse.”
Kuan took a couple of steps, but stopped. “No, not this horse. This is an old and tired horse who also wants to walk together with the mommy horse.”
“The mare,” I said. “It’s not called a mommy horse, it’s a mare.”
“Fine. The mare.”
He continued walking with Wei-Wen on his shoulders. He reached for my hand and we walked hand in hand for a few meters, but Wei-Wen swayed precariously up there, so he hastened to take hold of him again. Wei-Wen’s entire body bobbed with each step he took, he held his head high, looked around and discovered suddenly that he had acquired a wholly new stature.
“I’m the tallest!” He smiled to himself, as happy as only a three-year-old knows how to be.
We reached the top of the hill. The landscape was spread out before us. Rows of trees, as if drawn using a ruler, blossoming, symmetric cotton balls, against brown soil where the grass had only just begun to sprout through last year’s rotting leaves.
The wide and shady forest lay just a hundred meters away. Dark and overgrown. There was nothing for us there, and now these areas, too, were going to be planted.
I turned around. To the north there were fruit trees from here to the horizon. Long, planted lines, tree after tree after tree after tree. I had read about trips people made, in former times, tourists. They traveled to see areas like this in the spring, making the trip solely to see the blossoming fruit trees. Was it beautiful? I didn’t know. It was work. Every single tree was a dozen hours of labor. I couldn’t look at them without thinking that soon they would be full of fruit and we would have to climb up them again. Pick with hands just as attentive as when we pollinated, pack every single pear in paper with extreme care, as if it were made of gold. An overwhelming amount of pears, trees, hours, years.
But all the same, we were out here today. Because I’d wanted to be.