The Beekeeper of Coldharbour

Source written for Revision Library (original, copyright-free). A short original story written specifically for this cloze worksheet; no existing text has been used or adapted.

Priya hopped down from the bus and hitched her rucksack higher onto her shoulder. The village of Coldharbour smelled of warm hay and distant woodsmoke, and swallows darted low across the lane in quick, curving lines. Her great-aunt, Beulah, was waiting by the garden gate, her grey plait coiled neatly at the back of her head. 'There you are,' Beulah said, pulling Priya into a warm hug that smelled of lavender soap. Together they wound their way down the gravel path towards the old cottage, its thatched roof golden in the afternoon sun. Priya had never seen anywhere so peaceful before. When they reached the porch, Beulah lifted a small brass latch and pushed the door open.

By the second afternoon, the sky had turned a heavy shade of grey, and Beulah said thunder was rumbling in from the hills. Priya helped her carry the smoker and veils down to the orchard, her boots squelching through the wet grass. Beulah explained that the old straw skep was no longer used for the bees day to day; a row of modern wooden hives had overtaken it years before, though she still kept it hanging in the shed just in case. As the first raindrops pattered against the greenhouse roof, Priya asked whether a swarm had ever caused real trouble on the smallholding. Beulah's expression turned grave, and she told Priya about a summer from her own mother's time, when a runaway swarm had settled inside the farmhouse chimney and very nearly started a fire. 'That is why we never leave the hives unattended,' Beulah said, 'no matter how busy or how hectic the season gets.' Priya nodded, and quietly resolved that she would not break her great-aunt's trust, whatever challenges the summer might bring. By early evening the wind had begun to howl, rattling the greenhouse panes and bending the apple trees along the fence.

The heatwave broke on the hottest day of July. Priya was woken by a sound she could not immediately name, a low, thick hum rising from beyond the orchard fence. She found Beulah already outside in her nightgown, watching something with a stillness that made the older woman seem, for a moment, entirely unafraid. Above the third hive, a dark cloud of bees was gathering, thousands of wings glittering in the early light. Beulah did not flinch. She reached for the old straw skep hanging in the shed and began to move towards the swarm with slow, steady steps that Priya had never seen her take before. It was, Priya realised with a jolt, the first time in years that the ancient skep had been used for its true purpose rather than for decoration on the porch shelf. When the swarm finally settled inside the skep an hour later, Beulah set it down in the shade and said nothing at all, as though the whole event had been entirely commonplace. Only later, over breakfast, did she admit that her hands had been trembling the entire time.