In the town of Keystone, which in the grand scheme of things was a very small part of the world, lived a beekeeper named Creed Parsimony. Mr. Parsimony inherited and managed Parsimony Honey and Sweet Temptations. Creed enjoyed his work, he was dedicated to his work, and he was proud of his work. He had single-handedly trained his bees and his flower bushes to have a very productive symbiotic relationship. Creed Parsimony was the benevolent leader and hallowed harvester of his bees and their lustrous hive. He worked from sun up to sun down tending the hives, pulling weeds, pruning flower bushes and creating sweet temptations. Mr. Parsimony was known throughout the county for inventing new and exciting honey creations from his very own hives and was most recently featured in the Tribune for his spinach walnut honey dressing. As far as Keystone apiculture went, Creed Parsimony was it.
It so happened that overtime, as the apiarist community grew and became organized, so did case studies, fiscal figures and reports. As case studies, fiscal figures and reports were produced, revenue was generated in areas of beekeeping that had never before been practiced in Creed Parsimony’s long career.While his own business was still profitable in his little corner of the world, he'd be a foolish man not to consider reviewing the data written, prepared and published by Apiary Culture and Development (ACAD), LLC. What he found in those elongated, elegantly scientific paragraphs shocked him. He could quadruple his monthly production of the sweet syrup of the bees while saving in resources by merely transferring his hives by a few trivial degrees in both latitude and longitude.
Now Creed Parsimony was a man of intelligent integrity. He had gone into the beekeeping business because his father had been in the beekeeping business, as his father had, and so on as the story goes. He had followed the careful instruction of his fathers before him about how far east in the apiary the hives were to be because that is where the queen bee was the most protected. He remembered the wise words of his father telling him that the honeysuckle, thyme and the crab apples trees made the perfect combination and supply on the west of the apiary. He saw these practices put to use all his life and realized the importance of their design. But it was Creed Parsimony that turned the minuscule market into a burgeoning business, not his father. It was Creed's insight that made Parsimony a name synonymous with high quality honey creations. Therefore, in Creed Parsimony's mind, if constructive changes were to take place for the good of the company, then only his fear of success stood in his way.
Creed began drawing detailed blueprints of the layout in the new apiary. He had determined he would move the existing hives from 41° 20' N 75° 44' W to 31° 12' N 121° 26' E. In doing so, Creed concluded that, according to the studies written, prepared and published by APAD, LLC, honey production would increase 400% in his first quarter while saving him half of the resources used in past production. It almost seemed too simple, too obvious and too obtainable a feat - but Creed was no fickle man and had already decided this was best for the business. His new layout was something only the word 'progress' could really sum up. He started the communal hive reconstruction on a beautiful spring day, the kind of day where nothing could really go wrong. For hours Creed worked amidst a light spring breeze, slowly dismounting and traveling with hive after hive, hoping that each of his bees would follow his great strides across the apiary. After what seemed like an eternity, all of the Parsimony hives were precisely relocated and impeccably placed according to his master plans. Creed then got a pitcher of his lavender honey lemonade, a glass and a lawn chair and awaited for the yard to be abuzz with working honeybees once again.
Yet, there came nothing but chaos. The bees, it seemed, were not as enthusiastic about the relocated workhouses as Creed was. In fact, the bees were in outright panic mode. Where were they to go? How would they make a living? Who would protect their queen? Who will lead them? The bees make the hive, they are the hive, they belong as much to the hive as the hive to the bee. You see, bees are a slave to honey and then they die. They resolve to revolve around the flowers to collect the nectar to create the comb and produce the honey. This is their way of survival, and Creed Parsimony had just uprooted their stability, routine and lifeline. They began to disperse across the fields of lavender and daisy flowers. They hid in the azaleas and smashed into the goldenrod. It was utter havoc, not at all documented by ACAD, LLC, and not at all anticipated by Creed.
Time, thought Creed, perhaps in time they will sort it out and come to their senses.
A short time did pass at Parsimony Honey and Sweet Temptations but not a single original working honeybee returned to their hive. The flowers were rapidly becoming unpollenated and the honey production ceased. Creed was in a bind and had to think fast. As any captain of industry would do, Creed called in for reinforcements.
ACAD, LLC, had conducted a study on the Offal Island bee colonies - how they worked, produced and were dedicated to the hive while consuming less resources. Creed Parsimony had an emergency shipment of Offal Island bees flown to him as soon as humanely possible. Upon release, the Offal Island bees immediately took to the relocated workspace of the original Parsimony bees. They immediately began to produce honey faster and in greater quantity than the original bees had ever done. Creed Parsimony breathed a sigh of utter relief.
However, Creed soon realized that he was in few predicaments. There was that of the surviving original bees - still hovering and circling the grounds but they were weakening and diminishing in number. His prized bed of forget-me-not started to look like a honeybee battle field. Then there was the issue of the imported bees producing honey so rapidly that quality suffered while the quantity soared. The good people of Keystone soon began to realize the differences in Parsimony Honey and Sweet Temptations flavors (which directly correlated in lower quarter sales and stiff competition from "The Honey People" a few miles down the road). This contributed to the beginning of the cross county sales of Parsimony Honey and Sweet Temptations, and while Creed was extremely pleased with the return of revenue from these sales (as promised by ACAD, LLC), he began to feel like a stranger in his own hometown. The flowers of the fields began to wilt and become unruly as the Offal Island bees did not particularly like to collect nectar from anything other than ragweed thus creating a strategic supply source and an innovative, low energy, low cost partnership with the weeds.
Creed often reminded himself that business is business and he had to keep it running and profitable no matter who was dehived and who now in far off counties had runny Parsimony honey for their tea. Besides - his new boat, vacation home and contract to sell Parsimony Honey and Sweet Temptations on several shelves at WallWorld were just the right combination for comforting his conscious.
And of the original bees? Well, this story is not about them, it is all about Creed.
-an original story for Satire (Engl 311) by Jennifer Washicosky, edited by Kevin Lyons
-photo credit: www.istockphoto.com
