While you wait for the next installment of my story....

The Bee-keeper came out last night.

I was roused from deep 3:00 a.m. sleep by the clunk and hum of an old tractor.

I smiled as I rolled over and peered out of the floor-to-ceiling window that is directly next to my side of the bed. I could see the shine of yellow headlights working their way slowly up one of the rows of apple trees. It would have been disconcerting if I had not known from years previous what this early morning ruckus was about.

The bee-keeper transports his precious workers only at night. They sleep while he trundles them across the grassy inclines of the hill we live on, depositing them in strategic positions so that by morning they will wake to find acres of newly budding blooms to visit.

My husband mumbled something and tugged the blankets up over his head, but the dog and I kept watch on the bee-keeper. Something about this yearly ritual delights me. It signals the true beginning of Spring. The awakening of the apple and cherry trees. And the need to tread carefully across the lawn when dandelions are afoot.

I don't know who the bee-keeper is. Always shrouded in darkness, I recognize him only by the sound of the tractor and the shine of lights on the trees. And little does he know that off in the distance, someone watches him with sleepy interest... a smile given for a little tradition that is kept between two strangers, the moon, and the honeybees.