Bees terrified me. Then my beekeeper grandfather asked for my help.

“Why’d you plant those?” I asked my grandma, eyes on the bushes.

“Oh, the lavender? It’s for the bees.”

“Hm ... ?” I shuddered.

My grandpa had become a beekeeper.

I spent that summer eyeing him through the wide kitchen windows. He’d putter around all day, building hives or planting flowers. Poppy was a round man who always wore the same checkered shirt when he cared for his bees. I watched the sun bleach its pattern as the summer loped on.

While he worked, he beamed with happiness. Poppy cared for his bees like a doting first-time parent. When a new queen arrived in the mail (yes, it’s a thing), he’d send the whole neighborhood photos. He even paraded his stings: “They’re taking to me,” he’d say, grinning. “This time I was only stung twice!”

As I parked the car one afternoon, I saw Poppy on the porch. The moment I got out, he jogged up to me, a baseball cap teetering atop his head.

“I’ve been winterizing the hives,” he said, pausing to catch his breath. “All that’s left is to collect honey. But it’s a two-person job ...”

My stomach jolted. “And you want me to help?”

Poppy nodded. “I know you’re busy. But I’d love the assistance.”

I longed to say no. But I was a guest in his home. And he was so kind, and I knew how he loved his bees. I watched myself reply, as if in the third person: “I’d be happy to help.”

He rushed inside, giddy. He emerged with what looked like a mesh-covered safari hat to protect my face. The hive would be calmest if we didn’t wear full beekeeper suits, he said. There was nothing stopping bees from stinging everywhere but our faces.

Poppy strode over to a hive — a whitewashed wooden box with a removable triangle roof, reminiscent of a child’s drawing of a house. He opened the top. He puffed smoke inside, then — casually as if lifting Popsicles from the freezer — he reached in and grabbed a board coated in honeycomb.

“See, it’s not hard.” He brandished the comb. “Wanna try?”

I slipped on a glove and stepped over. The bees were woozy from the smoke but still conscious. The moment I approached, they perked up.

I shut my eyes and gripped a board in the hive. I felt specks of something climbing on my arm. I did my best not to think about what, but I knew bees were crawling on my skin. I scrunched my eyes closed and tried to block out their buzzing. Steeling myself, I pulled the board upward.

It caught at first, then slid out smoothly. I opened my eyes to look at what I was holding. The comb was a lace of thousands of holes, as intricate as any city. Bees meandered along my arm. None angry or stinging. All happily along for the ride.

I helped my grandpa ladle bees off our honeycomb, then loaded the boards into a centrifuge to extract the honey. We placed the bees and their share of comb back in the hives, then surveyed our harvest.

Grinning, Poppy handed me a chunk of honeycomb. “I saved this for you. The harvested honey is good, but I think it tastes best straight from the comb.”

I popped it in my mouth. The beeswax clumped as I chewed, and honey squashed out like milk from a tres leches cake. I closed my eyes and smiled.

I could taste a hint of lavender.

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Adelaide Parker can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @adelaide_prkr.