The pool

Fiction. Bees need water. This neighbor, this pool, and this hive are made up.

The neighbor had a pool the color of a mint that had been left in the sun.

The hive had a stand, a lid, and no water. The saucer by the bricks was dry and full of sand. The keeper had meant to fill it. Meaning is not water.

Foragers need water the way they need nectar, only more so when the brood is running hot. They use it to cool the comb. They dilute stores. They drink. In a June week, with cabbage palms roaring and I-4 heat sitting on the lot, a colony will go looking.

The pool was thirty yards of air away, over a fence, past a screened porch with a ceiling fan that ticked.

Bees do not read property lines. They read glare.

The first forager landed on the tile edge, where a film of water sat warm and chemical. Chlorine is not a flower. It is what was there. She drank. She left. She came back with sisters, because a water source that works gets a dance like any other source that works.

By ten the tile had a line of them.

The neighbor came out with coffee and made a sound that was not coffee-related. The neighbor had strong views about insects in the water. The bees had strong views about not dying of thirst. These views did not meet in the middle. They met on the skimmer.

A forager went into the pool proper, which was a mistake. Bees are not good at deep water. She struggled. The neighbor, who did not like bees and also did not like watching things drown, fished her out with the net and dumped her on the hot concrete, where she sat and considered her choices.

The screened porch door slapped. A child asked why the bees liked the pool. The neighbor said they did not like the pool. They liked the water. The child, who was better at this than the adults, asked why there was no water over there, meaning the hive. The neighbor did not own the hive and said so.

At noon the keeper appeared in the side yard, finally, with a hose.

Comedy of manners depends on timing. The keeper filled the saucer. Added pebbles so the bees would not drown in their own dish. Stood back. Waited for the colony to notice the new fountain, which was not a fountain, which was a dirty saucer in sand.

The colony did not notice at once.

They had a map, and the map said pool. Maps last longer than they should. Foragers kept going over the fence. The neighbor kept making the sound. The keeper, who could see the line of bees from the stand, walked over and did the hardest thing a person does in a city: talked over a fence.

This story will not reprint the talk. It had the usual parts. Sorry. Water. Heat. They will move. Give it a day.

The neighbor did not give it a day in their heart. They gave it a day on the calendar.

By late afternoon the saucer had traffic. A scout had done the unglamorous work of advertising a closer drink. Some foragers switched. Some did not. The pool still got visitors, because chlorine water in hard sun is a bright target and habits are heavy.

Rain came at three and closed the argument for eighteen minutes. Both yards steamed. The bees hid. The child watched the rain hit the pool and did not have to share it.

The next morning the saucer was busy and the tile was less so. Not empty. Less so. That is as much peace as Orlando offers in June.

The keeper kept the saucer wet after that. Bees will drink where the water is. People will be calmer if that place is not the deep end.