Beekeepers

May 5th, 2019

“You left active duty a year ago. Any idea what you’re gonna do with the money?” his father asked.

“I had a lot of time to think about that, Dad,” his son replied.

“Yes, you did,” his dad quietly replied. “Six months of rehab learning to walk again is like an eternity.”

“But the good news is I’m able to walk,” his son replied with a smile.

“I know you’re happy about the 60% disability rating, but it just seems to me it oughta be a lot closer to a hundred. I mean, you damn near lost one leg, the other one got burnt to hell, and your back was messed up pretty bad, too. And then there was the whole brain....”

“Dad? Can we talk about this some other time?” his son asked, trying to stay pleasant.

The truth was they’d talked about it so many times, the younger Crisler, Jared, had no interest in hashing it over again. What was done was done, and if the final determination was 60% then that was it. He was alive, he could walk again, and to him, that was what really mattered.

As to the VA’s ruling, sure, he could appeal it, but he saw no reason to do so. After nearly dying from an RPG round that had shattered his right leg while several pieces of hot metal severely burned the left while yet another went under his body armor and ended up against a vertebrae in his lower back, he was doing pretty well, all things considered.

Having run track in high school and college it was unlikely he’d ever run again. But just that morning he’d walked two miles with in spite of a significant amount of pain, and with any luck he’d be doing three in another month or so.

So while his 25-year old body hurt more than his father’s 53-year frame, Jared Crisler felt incredibly grateful. Most of the gratitude went to the people who’d kept him alive like the Navy corpsman who’d been at his sides with a minute of the initial blast when their convoy of Navy SEALS had been ambushed by the Taliban.

‘Doc’ Adams stopped the bleeding and splinted his shattered leg the best he could while they waited for the medevac helicopter to arrive. The ‘doc’ also did everything he could for the third-degree burns on his left leg while trying to avoid moving him at all because of the shrapnel wound in his back.

Jared woke up just as the ‘doc’ and two other SEALS were loading him onto the UH-1 helo, but he had only the vaguest memory of that.

“You’re gonna be fine, Lieutenant!” the doc assured him even though Jared was already mentally far, far away thanks to the pain medications he’d been given.

From there he’d gone through a half dozen surgeries and the rehab from hell in which he was never sure the right leg was going to make until a month before they finally released him from active duty.

He’d had help putting together the mountain of paperwork for the VA, and to his surprise, he had a determination within two months of submitting it. At 60%, he’d be receiving close to $2,500 a month and all of it tax free. In addition, he hadn’t spent more than a few hundred dollars total in the previous year thanks to an all-expenses paid vacation to sunny Afghanistan followed by rehab.

It the six months he’d been home receiving care from the VA in Seattle, Washington, he’d spent about the same amount of money. All in all, even though he was only a lieutenant, junior grade, or pay grade 0-2, he had a pile of cash saved up, a guaranteed income for life, and free medical care, such as it was.

Where the VA was concerned, it all boiled down to where you lived. Some facilities were nearly as good as any civilian hospital while others were downright awful. Seattle wasn’t bad at all, and his dad had taken him as often as his work schedule allowed, and that was one more thing for which he was very grateful.

But as much as he loved and appreciated his father, Jared wasn’t cut out to live at home anymore. At least not once he was able to live on his own, and that time was fast approaching.

His mother had passed away when he was in college, and while he knew his father was a lonely man, he also knew it wasn’t his responsibility to stay there so he’d have someone to talk to. At some point, George Crisler was going to have to put himself back out in the dating world and find someone who’d love staying there, and more specifically, being his wife.

As Jared got up to get something to eat, his dad said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to beat a dead horse. I...I’m just concerned. That’s all.”

“I know, Dad. And I do appreciate it,” his son told him truthfully before slowly making his way to the kitchen.

He actually wanted to talk with his dad, he just didn’t want to talk about the VA or percentages again. He just wasn’t quite ready to talk about what was really on his mind. He still had a lot more research to do, but this idea he’d recently come up with not only appealed to him, it had the added benefit of making him feel like he’d be doing something worthwhile with his life.

It was that sense of ‘the greater good’ that had drawn him to the military in the first place, and this new idea, while it wasn’t the same thing or anything even close, was certainly important in the big scheme of things. Most people had no idea just how important it was, but that didn’t lessen its significance one bit.

This big idea of his came about from seeing an article about the critically important role honeybees play in the world. Like nearly everyone else, he’d never once given any thought to something he’d taken for granted his entire life. Like them, Jared had just assumed bees had always been there and that they always would.

Or would they?

It was a month or so (and another surgery later) before he got around to doing some more reading after seeing that first article, and the more he read, the more interested he became. To his great surprise, he learned that honeybees were dying an alarming rate.

There were many reasons for it, but the biggest threat was from something called Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD for short. Suspects included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture identified a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at once.

During his research, Jared learned that bee populations are so low in the US that it now takes 60% of the country’s surviving colonies just to pollinate one California crop—almonds. And that’s not just a west coast concern as California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds, a market worth $4 billion.

Another huge surprise came from learning that Fargo, North Dakota, was the second best place in America to raise honeybees with his hometown area around Seattle being in the top five.

Because of the cold winters, Fargo made no sense to him until he learned how bees maintain the temperature in the hive at around 95F degrees regardless of the weather. Equally new to him was the way entire hives, or even colonies (large groups of many hives) were moved around the country in order pollenate crops like almonds in California then return to the Fargo area for the spring and summer to pollinate local crops and flowers.

Interestingly, when it came to moving them, Jared was very surprised to find out that bees had to either be moved less than a few feet or a very large distance or they would become so disoriented they couldn’t find their way back to the hive. Movements took place at night and/or during cold weather when all of the bees were inside the hive. Once they arrived at their new destination, even one that was thousands of miles away, they would perform the same rituals they’d been performing for millions of years in order to remember their new location and be just fine—as long as the queen survived.

Day-to-day management wasn’t all that difficult. Face the hive to the southeast, provide a windbreak to the rear of the hive, and position it somewhere that’s easy to harvest the honey. Yes, there was a lot more to it than that, but even so, it wasn’t what people called ‘rocket science’.

After all he’d been through, Jared not only wanted to do something he thought was important, he wanted to be able to live somewhere in quiet solitude for the foreseeable future. The fact that almond growers paid good money for honeybees to be brought in was icing on the cake.

His plan was to buy at least an acre of land and have a so-called tiny house built on it. Even one that was just 250 sqft would be all he’d need for him and the dog he planned to buy. He’d be close enough to Fargo to drive in once a week or so for supplies, and he could spend the bulk of his time tending the hive, doing some fishing, and with any luck maybe he’d even have access to WiFi so he could kill time playing the video games he still enjoyed.

One as-of-yet unanswered concern was plumbing. Specifically, indoor plumbing which meant having a bathroom inside the small house. Fargo got extremely cold during the winter, and he had no desire to have to walk to an outhouse several times a day—especially during the morning after a second cup of coffee. Another was digging a well for the water in order to make use of the plumbing, and of course, for drinking. Electricity, depending on the exact location, was another.

So at this point, he was still gathering all the information he could about bees, land, septic tanks, drilling wells, and tiny houses he could get his hands on. He had more than enough money set aside to buy everything he wanted along with a large 4-wheel drive vehicle he’d need to move the bees around the country, as well as to just get around during the winters; winters he hoped to be spending in warmer locations like sunny southern California while his bees pollenated whatever needed pollinating while he kicked back waiting for a big paycheck.

*****

“Willa, I understand you’re hurt, but Fargo? As in Fargo, North Dakota? Seriously?” her younger sister said.

“Vicki, it’s not just about the breakup. I’ve told you how important my work is enough times that you should know better.”

Her big sister’s reply was most true but unconvincing.

“Okay, fine. Still, I can’t help feeling terrible for you. I mean, what kind of guy calls off a marriage the morning of his wedding day, for crying out loud?”

Willa Parker knew the question was rhetorical, because her former fiancé had done just that. And once she’d regained her bearings again enough to think straight, she learned that sort of thing wasn’t all that rare and didn’t just happen in Hallmark movies on TV. Getting left at the altar—or just before getting to it—was more common than she’d ever thought possible.

Willa had been fascinated by all things ‘bugs’ from her earliest memories. That fascination had continued through high school and was the impetus for her decision to major in Entomology, the study of insects, at Kansas State University in her hometown of Manhattan, Kansas.

Her specific interest had been bees, a subset of Entomology known as Melittology. There was no degree offered in that very narrow slice of of the greater field, but she took every course she could on the subject, and since graduating, had worked in the field studying her favorite ‘insect’. Her primary concern was the extremely serious concern of Colony Collapse Disorder, and her dream was to find the cure.

The prestige would be fine, but it was her genuine love of bees, and in particular, honeybees, that drove her to find the answer to this very troubling problem. The only thing that ever come close to derailing her was falling in love, and when it happened for the first time at the late age of 37, she fell hard.

Willa was by no means gorgeous, but she was certainly in the above-average category where looks were concerned. She was a bit on the thin side, wore her long, dark hair in a bun most of the time, and although she dressed well enough, what she wore was often hidden by a white lab coat.

She’d remained single by choice, choosing to occasionally date and even ‘hook up’ every now and then. Most of what little dating she did was with coworkers who shared her passion so that dates could be extensions of work. And until Chris Bowman had come along that had suited her just fine.

Chris was everything she’d avoided her entire adult life. He was tall, strong, boyishly handsome, well-dressed, drove a fast car, and while not particularly well-educated—utterly charming.

Willa initially believed the attention he showed her was phony. She knew exactly how attractive she was, and more importantly—wasn’t. Most would call her a ‘7’’ on the infamous ‘1-10 scale’ while Chris was at least an 8+ if not an actual 9. But he kept pursuing her and telling her how beautiful she was until she began believing him.

The thing that reeled her in was when he said he was in love with her mind. He didn’t know the first thing about bees other than that they made honey, and while that would have normally been a dealbreaker for her, Willa was happy to overlook it because of the way he made her feel.

Her sister had tried to warn her several times, and after her mom and dad met him, alarm bells went off in their heads, too. But by then she was already crazy in love with him, and no amount of logic or reason could reach her normally logical and very rational mind.

Vicki gave up the fight first and did her best to be supportive. Flattered to be asked to be her sister’s Maid of Honor, she willingly dove in and helped with the details of planning the wedding, and with just a month to go, she started believing that maybe Chris wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

But the day he called things off, all of her previous doubts came back, crushing her like a ton of mental bricks. The worst of it was due to the reason he gave for breaking her sister’s heart. Evidently, the thought of being ‘tied down’ to just one woman for the rest of his life was too much to bear, and the closer their wedding got, the more he felt like he was facing an execution rather than a joyous event.

Vicki cried with her sister and held her when she needed it in the days that followed. To their credit, their parents never once said, “I told you so,” and they, too, were there for their daughter in every way possible.

And yet, even now, in spite of all the family support, it was still too painful for Willa to discuss.

“Can we not talk about that day?” Willa asked without any hint of annoyance in her voice.

“Sorry. Sure,” Vicki told her immediately.

Willa knew there was something else she wanted to ask so she told her sister to just say it.

“Okay. I guess what I’m wondering is...who are you going to, you know, date...in Fargo? I mean, seriously, Willa. Some guy who’s been out in a shale patch all week? A guy who comes into the big metropolis of Fargo, North Dakota, to spend his hard-earned money at the local saloon?”

“Ha-ha!” her sister replied, otherwise ignoring the sarcasm and the blatant stereotyping.

“There are men in Fargo,” she told Vicki a little too defensively before making it worse by adding, “And I’m sure a lot of them are very nice.”

“Yes, but how many of them have their teeth?” Vicki quipped.

Willa tried not to laugh, but this time she lost the battle.

“I’m just gonna miss you SO much!” her younger sister said as she fought off tears.

“You’re an extrovert, remember?” Willa reminded Vicki. “You’re the life of the party everywhere you go. You thrive on being around people.”

She paused then reminded her sister, “I don’t.”

“I know. You’re like Dad. A total introvert.”

“Introvert isn’t synonymous with shy, you know,” Willa told her.

“Yes. I do know that. I guess I’m just a little envious. I’m like Mom. I need people around me all the time. I feel like I have to talk or I’ll go crazy, but you’re fine all by yourself, and you could go days without saying a word.”

Vicki looked at her older sister then said, “You’re like some kind of...verbal camel.”

The comparison was accurate but funny, and Willa laughed again. It wasn’t completely accurate, though. The one thing her relationship with Chris had shown her was that she wasn’t fine on her own. She could endure being alone, but her preference was to have that one special person to talk to. Someone like...Vicki.

“I’ll be fine,” she said before hugging her sister then saying, “and so will you.”

“I don’t know about that. I know you’re an independent woman, but you can’t really be thinking about living there...alone.”

“I have a friend who teaches at NDSU. North Dakota State University. She’ll check in on me a lot, and her husband is a police officer who’s promised to drive by as often as he can.”

Not happy with the answer, but knowing her sister’s mind was made up, Vicki changed the subject after making Willa promise to give her the name and phone of her friend.

“How far away is...Fargo?” she asked, barely able to say the name of the city she’d never been to but already hated.

“Nine hours by car,” Willa told her, knowing that sounded like a million miles to her sister who really would miss her dearly.

“Will you come home and visit?” Vicki asked as she tried not to cry.

“Of course. As often as I can. And it’s not forever, remember? Most of the grant money is for a year, and that could be extended another six months or even a second year. But I’m not leaving forever, okay?”

“A year sounds like forever, Willa. Two seems like an eternity.”

Her older sister didn’t tell her that forever and eternity were the same thing as there was no need to do so.

“When do you leave?” Vicki asked.

“I thought I’d be leaving this week, but I need another month to save up the rest of what I need to live on. The grant money is coming, but it’s all bee-related, and it can’t be spent on personal items. The cabin isn’t all that big, and most of the space will taken up with lab equipment.”

“My sister the beekeeper,” Vicki said as she tried to smile.

“I’m not just keeping them, you know. I’m looking for a way to save them,” Willa reminded her sister—again.

“Right. The bee savior.”

Willa almost started explaining something else again like why this was so important, but she’d given the spiel one too many times already. Vicki always said she understood, but the truth was it didn’t matter to her. It was too much to expect her to envision a world without honeybees; a world where people in less-developed nations would die, and where the rest of the world would experience a huge change in their diet—and not in a good way.

“Well, at least we have another month,” Vicki said a little more cheerfully.

“Yes. Yes, we do,” her sister replied.

June 8th, 2019

The only dry eyes outside of her parents’ home were Willa’s as she said goodbye to the people she loved the most. She promised to text every day and Skype as often as she could, but while that would hold her parents between visits, she knew her sister needed to be physically with her. As much as it hurt her to say goodbye, this was a cause in which Willa deeply believed, and there was nothing that was going to keep her from pursuing it.

And so far, everything was falling into place quite nicely. She’d gone to Fargo a few months earlier and purchased a small tract of land with a very decent cabin on it that she would call home for as long as it took. The lab equipment had been ordered and would arrive within a week or so of her own arrival, and she had a deal with someone for a large colony of honeybees.

The only thing left to do, other than drive there, was to stop back by there when she returned and actually purchase the bees from a local seller and then move them to their new location which would be about 50-100 yards from the cabin.