Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

 David Heiller Before Cindy and I had children, we decided to get a puppy. We joked that it would be a good child-rearing test for us. (There’s a lot of truth to that joke.) We even named the dog Binti, which means “my daughter” in Arabic, which I spoke from my Peace Corps experience. Our first day with Binti. Binti was part of our family back then, nine years ago. She slept on the couch, or in our bed. When we visited relatives for holidays or weekends, she came along. We took her for walks every day, and played many games. One of the best games we played was on the big round bales of hay in the field near our rented farm house. Cindy and I would climb onto a bale, with Binti leaping to join us. Then we would race to the next bale, trying to keep ahead of the imaginary alligator. At first, Binti couldn’t catch us, but as the autumn progressed, we became alligator casserole nearly every night. When our real children started arriving, Binti’s life changed. She was...

David Heiller The hum from the bee hive rose to a roar as I lifted the lid off and puffed them with smoke. A stiff breeze swirled through the trees. Don’t work with bees on a windy day, the bee books say, but bees never could read very well. David and the hives . Besides, it was October 2, and I was about one month late in doing this job. Wind or no wind, I was going to take that honey. I squeezed the bellows of the smoker, sending more thick smoke down into the hive. The bees buzzed their disapproval, but most of them retreated into the hive. Smoke confuses them and sends them running to protect their queen. I couldn’t blame the bees for grumbling. They had worked hard for that extra box of honey. I lifted nine frames from the box on top. I used a hive tool, which is like a small crowbar, and a gripping tool to pry out each frame. They didn’t come out easily. In addition to weighing a couple pounds, each one was glued into place by bee glue, otherwise known as propo...