Bee Keepers Club

Every spring, the far corner of the orchard began to hum. That was where Grandma Olive kept her three white beehives, and this year Spike, Suzy and Little Thunder had joined her Bee Keepers Club.

"Rule number one," said Grandma Olive, pulling on her veil and gloves. "Bees are our friends. We move slowly, we stay calm, and the grown-up opens the hive." The three friends watched from a safe spot behind the fence, Little Thunder's curly mop poking over the top rail.

Grandma puffed a little cool smoke from her smoker. "This tells the bees to relax," she said, lifting the lid. Inside, wooden frames hung side by side like books on a shelf.

She held one up to the light. It was covered in hexagon cells. Some were capped with pale wax and full of honey. Others held tiny white larvae curled up like commas.

"That's the brood," Suzy whispered. "Baby bees."

Grandma pointed out the jobs. Worker bees, all female, cleaned cells, fed babies and flew out to collect nectar. The bigger, rounder drones waited to meet a queen. And there, longer than all the rest, was the queen herself, laying eggs one at a time.

"How does honey help the orchard?" asked Spike.

"Pollination," said Grandma. As bees visit flowers for nectar, pollen sticks to their fuzzy bodies and rubs off on the next flower. That helps the apple blossoms grow into fruit.

Little Thunder looked at the orchard with new eyes. Every apple, he realised, began with a bee doing her job. That evening, they spread fresh honey on toast and gave a quiet thank you to the busiest workers on the farm.