He didn’t need a bee suit. Hank knew his bees, and his bees knew him. It was the inexperienced who needed protection, those who saw the colony as little more than creatures to be dominated - exploited for their sweet wealth.
Respect
A rare treasure
All but forgotten
Hank watched the entrance to his hive, admiring the intensity of its activity. There were moments when he noticed a season change. Perhaps it was the sight of a thousand wattle trees erupting en masse into soft yellow bloom or the emergence of the first blue-tongue, leisurely in search of its morning meal. More often than not, however, it was something he felt: a warmth in the air, a vibrancy in his bones as nature awoke from its slumber. Whatever it was, the bees felt it too.
Rising to his feet, Hank surveyed the land. Today's transition marked the nineteenth season since he withdrew from society. He wasn’t sure how he felt. The inferno of anger and pain that compelled him into isolation had, for the most part, burned itself out. And he was proud of what he had achieved in just under five years.
An abandoned cabin
The remnant of another world
Deep in the Australian bush
Hidden
Closing his eyes, Hank inhaled deeply. The scent of spring was so heavy on the morning air that he could almost taste it. His face softened as he opened them again. People had doubted him; they had told him he wouldn’t make it out here by himself. The bush was too fierce, the elements so unconcerned with the fate of one solitary man. Yet here he was, alive and well-fed. He didn’t need them. He didn’t need anybody.
Gruelling exertion
Devastating heat
Nights without mercy
Endured
The bees foraged among the wildflowers that had sprung up among Hank’s vegetables and medicine plants, working to replenish the stores that had sustained them through the winter - a canvas of moving, breathing colour. Returning his attention to the hive, Hank gently pried open the lid.
The sound of a hundred thousand tiny wings filled the air with a deep vibration. Gently lifting a frame from the hive, Hank inspected the comb. The bees were diligently engaged in their work: building comb, filling cells with fresh honey, feeding the brood. Replacing the frame, Hank went to remove another. Just as he was about to lift it from the hive, he noticed a small section of comb the bees had built between this frame and the next. His eyes gleamed in amusement. Bloody overachievers. The cross-comb wasn’t a problem.
Unfastening the small folding knife from his belt, Hank sliced the bridging piece with a calm that betrayed his experience. He gently extracted the morsel of comb, placing it in a small earthen dish, his mouth alive with expectation. The obstruction taken care of, Hank removed the frame without risk of damaging the honey stores any further. A quiet gasp escaped his lips. Spanning a gap in the comb, a single line of bees hung together in what looked like a chain. He had read about this phenomenon in books but had never seen it with his own eyes. Hank stared into the distance as he tried to recall the word. Festooning. That was it. No one really knew why bees did this. Some thought it provided a scaffold from which they could build new comb. Others thought it was a technique by which they could measure distance. It didn’t matter. The bees knew what they were doing.
Each bee a link in the chain
Achieving something together they couldn’t alone
Identity beyond their individuality
A part of something bigger
Belonging
Hank felt his chest tighten. He quickly returned the frame to its place in the hive and replaced the lid. The hive was thriving, but there was something else. He didn’t understand, and he didn’t want to. A bee hovered above Hank's shoulder, inspecting the rugged man before landing delicately on the sleeve of his shirt. Bringing him back to reality, Hank brushed the bee back into the soft morning air, his hand trembling so slightly it almost escaped his notice. Picking up the small dish of honeycomb, he turned on his heels and made his way back up the sloping path.

***

A worn hardwood table sat in the centre of Hank's cabin. He didn’t spend much time inside due to the small windows and resulting lack of light; still, he tried to make it feel nice. It was, after all, his home, and it was important that it felt like it. Adorning the table was a dried clay vase. Hank had fashioned it from the thick, moist earth that embanked the creek wandering the valley beneath his land. Like the crown of an ancient king, this vase exhibited the regal beauty of the seasons. Whether the sweet lemon scent of the crimson bottlebrush or the cinnamon myrtle in its aromatic splendour, a deep connection existed between Hank’s cabin and the land on which it dwelt. Today, however, it was not the contents of the vase that held his attention.
Pulling up a rough-hewn stool to the table, Hank sat in silence before his breakfast. Three small bush cakes, made from the sundried paste of sandpaper figs and wattleseed, graced the table. It was the fresh piece of honeycomb, however, just the size of a newborn’s fist, upon which his gaze was keenly fixed. Taking his knife, Hank sliced the comb into three pieces, one for each of his cakes. Biting into the first laden morsel, his mouth was filled with the bee’s sweet amber liquid. Hank closed his eyes as he chewed. It took him back – it always did.
Steaming fresh bread
An old honeypot
The airy kitchen pervaded with the heavenly aroma
Specks of flour and dough as numerous as the night sky
A gleaming smile from across the same table
Brighter than the morning
The blackened kettle, whistling on his woodfired stove, unwillingly pulled him back. He wiped the moisture from the edge of his eyes. It had been fifteen years, yet it still felt like yesterday. He remembered the exact moment the phone call came. Sitting in his cramped cubical, assaulted by the thick breeze of a rusty ceiling fan, the police officer had informed him that a drunk driver had ploughed a stolen car into the front of his home. His wife, asleep on the couch after back-to-back nightshifts in the local emergency ward, didn’t stand a chance. The seventeen-year-old driver, by some cruel providence, managed to survive. Hank later found out that he was known to the police. The pathetic slap on the wrist he received the first time he was caught was obviously a joke. As a juvenile, he was given the maximum two-year sentence, a gross mockery of the twenty-five years he would have served had he been just two months older. The injustice had almost destroyed him.
Lifting his body from the stool, Hank filled his chipped enamel mug with hot tea and took the rest of his breakfast outside. She would have loved it here. From where he stood, a few paces from his cabin, Hank could see the valley open out before him. He loved the way the ancient gum trees commanded the landscape, each standing witness to the unalterable passage of time. Winding beneath their dancing blue-green canopy, a narrow trail led out of the valley. During his first year on the land, Hank regularly made the two-day trek to the nearest town. Over time, however, these supply runs had become increasingly infrequent. Ten moons had waxed and waned since his last contact. After all, there was now very little he needed that the land didn’t provide. With unfocused eyes, Hank stared deep into the valley, remembering the path, feeling the conflict inside.
Like approaching a fork in the trail
Unmarked and without a map to guide
Uncertain, yet requiring decision
Gnawing doubt, threatening to consume
The wrong choice could cost everything

***

Thick, dark clouds bore the weight of their load into the valley. The air was filled with the rich, earthy scent the land released as it prepared to receive the rain. Hank made his way back to the hive as a low rumble sounded in the distance. The first heavy drops began to fall from the sky, splattering the roof of the hive as Hank checked again that it was firmly in place. Abandoning their flowers, the last few bees returned to the safety of the colony. Foraging could wait.
Hank returned to the shelter of his cabin. Stoking the wood stove with a fresh log, he sat down to watch the rain. The treetops whipped around in the strengthening wind as jagged flashes of lightning began to illuminate the dark sky. Hank ran his fingers through his rough, sandy hair, trying to calm his nerves. The rain didn’t affect him the way it used to. Still, there were moments when the elements displayed a particular ferocity, challenging his otherwise firm resolve.
Weeks of unrelenting rain
Land completely saturated
Unable to hold a single drop more
Water rising with breathtaking speed
Like a leviathan devouring everything in its path
Overcome
The flood had caught everyone utterly unprepared. Hank escaped with his life and the clothes on his back. Others hadn’t been so lucky. Days went by before the waters began to recede, revealing a wasteland of homes and shattered lives. He lived in a dilapidated caravan for the better part of two years, eating expired food and battling the insurance company. His claim was eventually tossed aside like mud-stained flotsam.
A shell of the man he once was, he couldn’t take it anymore. The system he served had failed him, indifferent to the violence with which everything he held dear had been ripped from him. What little Hank still possessed was loaded into his worn-out ute. For three days, he drove, eventually reaching a small, unremarkable town at the edge of the mountains. With an oilskin jacket, a pack on his back and a small wad of cash from the sale of his truck, he left it all behind.
Sitting in the open doorway, his oilskin draped across his knees, Hank began to shake. Warm, heavy drops pattered his jacket, mimicking the falling rain outside. A deep rumble reverberated through the drenched landscape as Hank rubbed his chest. What am I doing? Like the emergence of a prisoner long kept locked away, the weight of his isolation overcame him. His mind returned to his bees, linked together in a deep interdependence. Perhaps the poets were right; maybe no man was an island.
To be seen and known
The heart's deepest craving
To have a place
In the presence of others
These penetrating new thoughts were cut short by an ear-splitting crack.  A brilliant flash illuminated the valley as a bolt of lightning struck one of the scribbly gums towering over Hank's land. A hundred million volts of electricity instantly superheated the sap coursing through the ancient tree's veins. Hank watched in terror as a massive bough crashed through the canopy. He heard it hit the ground, but there was another noise too.
Filled with dread, Hank donned his oilskin as he flew down the path into his garden. No, please, no. The hundred-kilo branch had smashed into the hive, its splintered contents scattered across the ground. Without thinking, he tried to lift the branch from the wreckage. His breath caught as pain erupted across both of his hands. Blinking in the downpour, Hank saw the mixture of honeycomb, broken wood and dead bees covering his bare skin. His hands began to swell. Staggering in disbelief, Hank remembered he had never been stung by a bee before. His pulse quickened as the anaphylaxis overtook his body. In less than a minute, Hank lay sprawled on the ground, unable to breathe.
Thousands of dying bees
A forgotten old man
Together
Staring into the falling rain