I wasn’t sure keeping bees was the best idea at first. Three years ago, we learned that Thomas, a friend of a friend, was beginning a small urban beekeeping business, and he needed people in different parts of the city to host hives. I wanted to help him, but I was nervous—not really about me—but that our dogs would get stung or our neighbors would complain. I worried a small child would be stung and go into anaphylactic shock, that we’d end up embroiled in a lawsuit. But in the end, I was just too curious. Besides, my husband Tony envisioned bucketfuls of honey for making homebrewed mead, so I gave in.

Early one spring morning, Thomas pulled up our driveway in his brown Toyota Camry.

“Where are the bees?” I asked.

“They’re in the trunk,” he answered, very matter-of-factly. I imagined a trunkful of angry bees trying to find their way out through some small crevice, and took a few steps backward.

“Maybe I should go in the house?” I’d been stung only twice before, and I didn’t relish the potential for many stings at once.

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