Day 9 - Beekeeper Story

Beekeeper Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Shamus was an amateur beekeeper.  Shamus was not his real name, or his original name, to be more precise, because it was his current official first name.  Shamus was born David Anthony Hart.  He enjoyed less than a quarter Irish ancestries, but he did have solidly dark ginger hair, unmistakably pale skin with the requisite freckles and he possessed an overwhelming desire to embrace that distinct part of his blood lineage.  So Shamus was born one sunny Tuesday afternoon.

Shamus was an amateur beekeeper.  He enjoyed the artisan lifestyle.  He had a small cottage in Garden Heights, California, which he shared with an amateur glassblower and sculpture named Rick, also known sometimes as Jed.  Shamus started beekeeping as a hobby and began bottling his own organic all-natural honey more for fun than anything else.  But as these things sometimes go, he made a very solid product and was able to sell it to the types of people that were very concerned about all natural goodness.  Jed was an old friend and his uniquely original glassblowing skills came in handy as every jar of Shamus Honey was shaped different from every other jar.

Neither man was going to be rich any time soon.

Shamus has a strange moment of fantasy about becoming a serial beekeeper killer.   Not that he was going to go around killing beekeepers in some serialized fashion, but that he could become a beekeeper that was a serial killer of bees.  He had heard about colony collapse and had a passing thought that it could all have been on purpose as part of someone’s diabolical plot.  Not that he could really determine what the plot’s end result really was, but the thought had intrigued him.  If he chose to pursue this new profession, he thought he might be the only man in history to have chosen this path.  Was there even a legitimate reason or a desire for someone to actually become a beekeeper killer?  If so, what was it and who had done it?  Surely if someone had tried it, wouldn’t something like that be noticed?  How many bees would have to disappear before people took note?

Shamus had stepped on a bee that day.  It wasn’t malicious, but it had happened.  He hadn’t named his bees or tagged them and had no way of knowing if it was one of his bees.  He knew it had been one of his bees. He could just feel it.  He hadn’t felt that bad either.  Who really got sentimental over a bee?  But in stepping on and accidentally killing that one bee, the idea had hatched. 

Shamus didn’t have much remorse, but he also didn’t truly have a new-found desire to go on a bee killing rampage.  So maybe he wasn’t really a serial beekeeper killer after all.  Maybe an amateur status was good enough.