Apis

By Liz Boysha

A woman wakes up to find bees are living inside her. It's a love story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Liz Boysha
• Release date: Dec 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223710493

Liz Boysha

Liz is an artist, ecologist, and occasional author. She enjoys being alone or spending time with goats.

Book preview

Apis

Liz Boysha

Published by Liz Boysha, 2023.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

APIS

First edition. December 7, 2023.

Copyright © 2023 Liz Boysha.

ISBN: 979-8223710493

Written by Liz Boysha.

Table of Contents

Beekeeper

Beekeeper

Part 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Part 2

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Part 3

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Epilogue

Apis 

Part 1 

Chapter 1

IT WAS SNOWING IN JUNE the day I decided to write a novel. I had just finished reading yet another thrift store paperback, and as I stared at the stacks of books cluttering my flat, I thought maybe if I could consume all of these words I could probably regurgitate them in a more or less original way as well. The trouble was I didn't know if I had the stamina to write a whole novel, as I’d struggled to write anything longer than a couple of pages at best, and even my thesis draft was described as terse by my graduate committee.

I knew I hadn't always had such a short attention span for stories, because as a child I delighted in writing epics in elaborate worlds I'd created, complete with maps, histories, and languages. During recess I'd run around the playground, making believe I was in one of my own worlds. This was a defense mechanism, I’m sure, because I was a foster kid; with no place to call home I had to make up my own. I'm sure I used up all of my imagination too early, because by the time I was old enough to graduate high school I couldn't even imagine what I would do with the next 50 or so years of my life. I struggled at university coming up with original research ideas, and preferred just to take whatever research position was open. I ended up specializing in insects after stumbling into a lead research role for a study on mountain pine beetles my sophomore year, then later got an assistantship with Dr. Allen, honey bee expert.

I eventually became more interested in the broader effects in ecology: climate change, chain reactions, the butterfly effect. I loved seeing how the entire web of ecological interactions collapsed if you altered even a single strand, like the trophic cascade: when the wolves were exterminated from Yellowstone National Park, the elk population exploded. Diseases emerged and spread like wildfire among the populations, and plant growth became stunted due to overgrazing. The reduced plant growth affected the other animals, especially birds and insects, and dying numbers of those industrious pollinators resulted in even fewer plants the next year. Beavers began to disappear, without the willow plants they rely on for food and homes. The loss of plant life also resulted in significant erosion in the soil, due to the lack of strong roots to hold everything together. When wolves were finally reintroduced in the 90s, they rapidly brought the elk population back to a manageable level, and the ecosystem was able to begin renormalizing. I also found a love for statistical modeling, and I thought that maybe if you could model the exact cause and effect reaction for every decision ever made up to now, you could find a link that you wanted to erase and change it, even if it occurred in the past.

What I lacked in imagination I absolutely did not make up for in experience. As I grew older I became increasingly less interested in adventure, or even really in leaving my own house, and I enjoyed the peace of simplicity. Despite being an exemplary student, my anxiety held me back from groveling to my professors or becoming one of their star students, the ones always picked first for new opportunities. I hadn’t completed my thesis when I began working for an environmental law firm, and when I eventually went to full time, the idea of finishing my thesis felt trivial. I hadn’t needed a graduate degree for the job, which consisted mainly of taking samples of swamp water and diesel exhaust.

I had no family, and I lived alone in a basement flat with a grey Maine coon who had managed to survive her first several years in a meth house. She escaped after an explosion in the basement, and was found by firefighters hiding under a toolshed, her silky fur singed at the tips. She had been adopted by several families before I met her, all of whom had sent her back after no more than a couple days, citing her unfriendliness. It sounded like a perk to me, because everyone who’s ever met me would describe me as unfriendly, too. After I adopted her, I barely saw her for six weeks. Only the regular need to fill her food and water bowls or change her litter box told me she was still in my tiny apartment. Then one day she climbed into my pillow and curled up around my head as I fell asleep, and that was that. I named her Echo.

I decided to write a novel because I was almost 30 and I had yet to do anything meaningful with my life, but that's about as far as my muse would take me. I had no idea what to write about; no characters, no plots or settings or themes. I had grown up around a regularly revolving set of strangers and never knew anyone beyond a superficial level until college, and I certainly wasn’t ready to think about that. I stared at the blinking cursor on my screen for a few minutes before closing my laptop and setting it down.

I heard the soft hum of a honey bee buzzing; a sound I knew well after spending hot summers studying them for my thesis. I looked out towards the only window in my flat, above the kitchen sink. The glass was broken in the corner, letting in the bitter cold in the winter and the bitter stink of asphalt in the summer. It was snowing outside, despite the June, despite 90 degree weather last week, because that's what weather patterns were doing now. Everything, really, was becoming increasingly less predictable as I grew older, and I had no idea if it was me or the world that was losing touch.

In Norse mythology, bees were believed to feed from the sap that drips from Yygdrasil, the world tree, imbuing them with the power of foresight, and they were seen as both omens and agents of fate. As I watched the snow fall outside, another bee crawled under the window, then another, and soon all three sisters were flying around my ceiling, their soft buzzing filling my ears. I stood up to look closer, and saw that a large swarm was dangling off the overhang over my window. A queen in a nearby hive must have taken off, along with half her children, leaving the rest to raise a new queen. They must not have expected the snow any more than I did, because they would likely freeze overnight without a hive to keep warm.

It was getting dark, and my dream to write a novel was quickly starting to feel like an old memory, already fading and torn. I stared idly at the three bees circling lazily around my ceiling. I hated getting stung by bees, ever since my graduate advisor made me go on a last minute sampling trip with him with no preparation, and I ended up getting venom poisoning from too many stings. I didn’t have my boots, so the first hive we opened up immediately found the inch-wide strip of ankle that was covered only by a sock and attacked. The Arrernte aboriginals in Australia say that getting stung by a single  ngaraang , or bee,  is an honor: you have been given an important message. Ignoring the message is a grave insult to the gods, for the  ngaraang  has sacrificed its life to deliver it, and to be stung by more than one bee is the ultimate disgrace. The  ngaraang  is in danger now, and whole colonies are dying, abandoning the hive without a trace and only the queen bee  darribun  remains.  That night I felt my disgrace as my ankle swelled up 3x its normal size and I became violently ill.

I’d found out just that morning that I was pregnant, I hadn’t even had a chance to tell my boyfriend, and that night my uterus began cramping and blood and tissue poured out from between my legs. I hadn’t wanted a baby; I couldn't even imagine being responsible for a whole new life, but I mourned it just the same. When my boyfriend called me the next day, I broke up with him. I couldn’t tell him about the miscarriage. I was ashamed for how badly I felt when I thought about what could have been, especially since soon as I saw the pink lines I was wondering if I had enough in savings for an abortion. I wasn't supposed to want children, at least not for another decade or so. I was a career scientist, and giving birth would put my life on hold. By the time the bundle of cells inside me was old enough to go to school, all of my research would be outdated. The scientific world moves on when women have babies, my advisor told me once. He was always hinting that I had no place there. He made me sick to look at after that day. Every time I saw his face I heard him telling me to man up about the bee stings and refusing to let me take a break, muttering about how women are too weak to be in the sciences.

It seemed that there were more honey bees flying around my tiny studio apartment now, the buzzing sound gradually filling my ears until I could hear nothing else. Echo glared at them from her spot on the sofa, and I wondered what to do about the window. I turned out the lights, hoping it would dissuade any new intruders, then I went into the bathroom to grab a towel. When I looked in the mirror I was a little surprised to see there were even bees crawling around my hair, and I knew if I tried to get them out they'd become tangled in the black corkscrew curls, irate as they grew increasingly more trapped.

I returned to the kitchen with a towel rolled up, intending to wedge it into the gap in the window, but even more bees were clustering around the opening: dozens now, spilling out onto the counter and sink. A couple of bees licked up the sugary remains of the cereal I had for dinner from the bowl I had not yet bothered to wash. I used to love cooking, but in my solitude it was difficult to decide what to make, and too often the decision was made only by my inaction. Above my head, they flew around the dark ceiling, and I felt their vibration and movements in my scalp as more landed in my afro.

I was quickly becoming overwhelmed, so like any rational person I decided it would be best to go to bed, and maybe in the morning it would warm up and the bees would find somewhere else to live. I made myself a cup of chamomile tea, mostly just to hold the warm mug and inhale the astringent steam. I wasn’t entirely sure how I would lay down without agitating any of the bees into stinging me, but on the whole they seemed