The Sting

Colony

Chapter 19: The Sting

The sting happened on a Thursday in late July at the Kowalski apiary, the cattle ranch east of Sheridan, the twenty-three hives along the fence line bordering the meadow. Meg was pulling a frame from hive number nine, a strong colony, a colony she had been watching for swarm signs all month because the population was dense and the queen was prolific and the brood nest was expanding into the honey stores, the signs that preceded swarming, and she was checking the bottom bars for queen cells when the bee stung her on the inside of her left wrist, the soft skin above the pulse point, the place where the vein ran close to the surface and the skin was thin and the sting went deep.

She felt it. She had felt ten thousand stings. She had felt stings through gloves and through suits and on bare skin, on her hands and her arms and her neck and her ankles, on the bridge of her nose where a bee had crawled under the veil and stung her between the eyes, on the pad of her thumb where the skin was thick and the sting barely registered, on the back of her hand where the skin was thinner and the sting burned for an hour. She had felt the spectrum of stings, from the barely-there to the deeply painful, and she had catalogued them in her body the way she catalogued the hive inspections in her notebook, each sting a data point, each data point contributing to the accumulated knowledge of a woman who had been stung more times than she could count and who registered each sting and dismissed each sting and continued the work because the work continued regardless of the sting.

This sting was different.

She knew it was different within thirty seconds. The pain was sharper than usual, the barbed stinger having found the spot where the skin was thin and the tissue beneath was vascular and the venom was delivered not into the subcutaneous fat that buffered most stings but into the proximity of the blood, the venom entering the circulation faster than usual, the speed of the delivery amplifying the effect, and the effect was the swelling -- the immediate wheal at the sting site, the red raised disc that was normal, that was the localized allergic reaction that every sting produced in every person, the histamine response, the body's defense against the foreign protein in the venom -- but the swelling spread. The swelling moved up her wrist, toward her forearm, the skin puffing, the heat radiating, and Meg watched the swelling with the diagnostic attention she applied to the bees, the watching that assessed and measured and compared against the baseline of what was normal, and the watching told her that this was not normal, that this was more than the localized reaction she had experienced for thirty years, that this was the beginning of something she had read about and prepared for and had never experienced.

She set the frame down. She stepped back from the hive. She looked at her wrist. The swelling had reached her mid-forearm in sixty seconds, the skin tight and hot, the redness spreading in a disc the size of a salad plate, and the spreading was the data, and the data said: systemic reaction, not localized, the venom in the blood, the body responding not at the site but throughout, and the throughout was the thing, the throughout was the line between the normal sting response and the abnormal sting response, the line between the beekeeper's occupational hazard and the beekeeper's medical emergency.

Meg was not having an emergency. She assessed this with the same dispassion she assessed a colony's mite level -- the data first, the response after, the data being: swelling beyond the sting site, spreading rapidly, no respiratory distress, no difficulty breathing, no swelling of the lips or tongue or throat, no dizziness, no drop in blood pressure, the vital signs stable, the body reacting but not collapsing, the reaction being a warning rather than a crisis, a yellow light rather than a red, the body saying not "you are dying" but "something has changed."

Something had changed.

The change was immunological. Meg understood this because she had read the literature on bee venom allergy the way she had read the literature on every aspect of beekeeping, the reading being part of the practice, the knowledge being part of the competence, and the literature was clear: bee venom allergy was acquired, not innate. A person could be stung a thousand times without significant reaction and then, on the thousand-and-first sting, the immune system could shift, could reclassify the venom from nuisance to threat, could begin producing the IgE antibodies that sensitized the mast cells and that primed the body for the next encounter, the next sting, the sting that would trigger the mast cells to release their histamine and their other inflammatory mediators in quantities that exceeded the localized response and that produced the systemic response -- the widespread swelling, the hives, the flushing, the potential anaphylaxis -- the body's immune system turning against the substance that the body had tolerated for thirty years, the tolerance ended not by a change in the venom but by a change in the body, the body's defenses deciding, by some mechanism that immunology understood in broad strokes but not in molecular detail, that the thing they had tolerated was now the thing they would fight.

Luz was there. Luz was at the next hive, pulling frames, and she saw Meg step back and she saw Meg looking at her wrist and she came over, the smoker in her hand, and she looked at the wrist and Meg saw Luz see the swelling and Meg saw Luz's face process the swelling and Meg saw Luz understand.

"It's spreading," Luz said.

"Yes."

"Do you have an EpiPen?"

"In the truck."

"You should get it."

"I should get it."

The exchange was flat, was the exchange of two people who were assessing a situation, the situation being medical, the assessment being clinical, the emotions parked outside the assessment the way the truck was parked outside the apiary, present but not part of the current process. Meg walked to the truck. She walked because walking was the appropriate speed for a reaction that was systemic but not anaphylactic, the walking being the assessment's expression -- if the reaction had been anaphylactic, the walking would have been running, the speed matching the severity, and the walking said: this is serious but this is not critical, this is a warning, this is the body's first draft of a response that may become severe in the future but that is manageable now, in this moment, with this sting, in this wrist.

The EpiPen was in the glove compartment. Meg had carried an EpiPen for twelve years, since the allergist in Salem had recommended it, since the appointment she had made after reading the literature on beekeeper sensitization, after reading the statistics -- approximately three percent of beekeepers develop systemic reactions, approximately one in two hundred beekeepers experiences a life-threatening reaction over the course of a career -- and the statistics had persuaded her to carry the EpiPen the way the mite threshold statistics had persuaded her to carry the oxalic acid, as treatment, as preparation, as the response pre-positioned for the contingency.

She had never used it. She had carried the EpiPen for twelve years and replaced it every eighteen months when it expired and had never used it because she had never needed it because she had never had a systemic reaction because her body had been tolerating the venom for thirty years, the tolerance being the norm, the tolerance being the condition that beekeepers relied on, the condition that said: you have been stung before and you will be stung again and your body knows the venom and your body manages the venom and the managing is the baseline and the baseline is stable.

The baseline had shifted.

She held the EpiPen. She did not use it. The reaction was not progressing to anaphylaxis -- no airway involvement, no cardiovascular symptoms, the spreading swelling holding at the forearm, the redness intense but bounded, the body's response large but localized, the expanded localized reaction that the allergists called a "large local reaction" and that was the intermediate category between the normal sting response and the systemic anaphylaxis, the category that said: you are not in danger now, but you are on notice, your body has changed, your immune system has changed, the thing that was tolerated is now the thing that is fought, and the fighting may escalate.

Meg took a Benadryl from the first aid kit in the truck. She swallowed it with water from the bottle in the cup holder. She sat on the tailgate and she looked at her wrist and she watched the swelling and the watching was the practice, was the observation that preceded the intervention, was the beekeeper's method applied to the beekeeper's body -- observe, assess, determine the threshold, respond if the threshold is crossed, wait if it is not.

The swelling held. The Benadryl worked. Within an hour the spreading had stopped, the redness was fading, the wrist was still swollen but the forearm was subsiding, and Meg was sitting on the tailgate of the truck in the Kowalski apiary in the July afternoon with her left arm resting on her knee and the EpiPen beside her and Luz standing nearby and the bees flying and the hives humming and the season continuing the way the season always continued, regardless.

"You need to see the allergist," Luz said.

"I know."

"This could be worse next time."

"I know."

"Meg."

"I said I know."

The sharpness in her voice was the sting's secondary reaction -- not the immunological response but the emotional response, the irritation that was not irritation at Luz but was irritation at the body, at the body's betrayal, at the immune system's decision to reclassify the thing that the beekeeper needed to tolerate in order to do the work that was the beekeeper's life, the reclassification being a betrayal because the tolerance had been the covenant, the body's covenant with the practice, the agreement that said: you can do this work because your body can tolerate the consequences, and the consequences are stings, and the stings are manageable, and the managing is part of the practice, and the practice is the life.

The covenant was breaking. The body was renegotiating. The body was saying: I have tolerated this for thirty years and I am no longer willing, or I am no longer able, or the distinction between willing and able does not apply to an immune system that operates without intention, without will, without the capacity for decision in the way that humans understood decision, the immune system making its assessment by the same mechanism the colony made its assessment of the queen -- chemically, automatically, without deliberation, the response to the stimulus being the response, the response not chosen but produced, the body doing what the body did in the same way the colony did what the colony did.

Thirty years. Thirty years of stings, hundreds per season, thousands total, each sting depositing its fifty micrograms of venom -- apitoxin, the complex mixture of melittin and phospholipase A2 and hyaluronidase and the twenty other compounds that constituted bee venom -- each deposit met by the immune system with the appropriate response, the localized response, the wheal and the redness and the pain that lasted an hour and then subsided, the body processing the venom and the venom fading and the beekeeper continuing. Thirty years of this. Thirty years of the covenant holding. And now the covenant was cracking, the way propolis cracked when you pried the inner cover off a hive, the seal breaking, the thing that had held coming apart.

Meg did not make the metaphor. She refused the metaphor. She refused to draw the line between her body rejecting the sting and her marriage ending, between the immune system's reclassification and Gavin's departure, between the tolerance that had shifted and the partnership that had dissolved. She refused because the refusal was important, because the line was too easy, too neat, too literary, and Meg did not live in the literary, did not construct her life as narrative, did not see the sting as symbol, saw the sting as sting -- the barbed stinger of a honeybee embedded in the skin of her left wrist near the pulse point, the venom delivered, the immune response amplified, the medical fact, the biological event, the thing that had happened and that she would manage because managing was what she did.

She would manage it the way she managed mites -- with monitoring, with treatment, with the permanent vigilance of a person whose practice required proximity to the thing that could harm her. She would see the allergist. She would get the blood test that measured the IgE levels, the specific antibodies that indicated the degree of sensitization. She would carry the EpiPen with a new awareness, the awareness of a person who had moved from the theoretical need for the EpiPen to the practical need, from the carrier who had never used it to the carrier who might, the might being the change, the might being the new baseline.

She would continue to keep bees. This was not in question. This was not a decision that required deliberation or discussion or the weighing of options. She would keep bees because keeping bees was what she did and was what she was and the being and the doing were not separable and the sting did not change this, the sting changed the risk but did not change the practice, the risk being a variable that was adjusted for but not surrendered to.

She had adjusted for risk her entire career. The risk of the mite killing the colony -- managed by monitoring and treatment. The risk of the bear destroying the apiary -- managed by electric fencing. The risk of the pesticide spray from the neighboring farm killing her bees -- managed by communication and placement and the careful monitoring of the drift. The risk of the starvation in winter -- managed by adequate feeding. The risk of the body's betrayal -- managed by the EpiPen and the allergist and the awareness and the continuation.

The continuation was the thing. The continuation was always the thing.

She went back to the hives. The Benadryl made her drowsy, the antihistamine's side effect, the pharmacological trade-off between the reduction of the allergic response and the reduction of alertness, the trade-off that Meg accepted the way she accepted all trade-offs, as the cost of the treatment, as the price of the intervention, as the thing you paid in order to do the thing you needed to do. She worked slowly, more carefully, the drowsiness blunting the sharp edge of her usual efficiency, the body slightly lagged, the reaction time slightly delayed, and she compensated with deliberateness, with the extra caution that the diminished state required, the adjustment that was the adjustment, the managing that was the managing.

Luz watched her. Luz worked beside her and watched her from the corner of her eye, the watching being the concern that Luz expressed without expressing it, the concern that was visible in the proximity, in the way Luz stayed closer than usual, in the way Luz positioned herself between Meg and the hive they were working, the body language of a person who was ready to respond, to intervene, to catch, the readiness that was the caring disguised as the working, the medicine hidden in the sweetness of the professional.

They finished the Kowalski apiary. They drove home. The afternoon was hot and the valley was gold and Meg's wrist was still swollen, the swelling now a tight pink disc the size of a grapefruit, the skin stretched and itching, the itch being the histamine's legacy, the final stage of the reaction, the body cleaning up after the immune response, the inflammation subsiding, the tissue returning to normal over the hours that would follow, the wrist returning to wrist, the skin returning to skin, the body restoring the baseline that the sting had disrupted.

But the baseline was not the same baseline. The baseline had shifted. The body that sat in the truck on the county road driving home from the Kowalski apiary was a different body from the one that had driven to the Kowalski apiary that morning, the difference invisible, the difference immunological, the difference being the antibodies that now circulated in the blood, the IgE molecules that had been produced in response to this sting and that would remain, that would persist, that would be waiting for the next sting, and the next sting would trigger them, and the trigger would produce the response, and the response might be the same as today's or might be worse, and the worse was the risk, and the risk was the new baseline, and the new baseline was the condition, and the condition was permanent.

She parked the truck. She went inside. She stood at the kitchen sink and ran cold water over her wrist and the water was cool on the hot skin and the cooling was relief and the relief was temporary, was the thirty seconds of cold water on inflamed skin, was the small comfort that the body accepted with the gratitude that the body expressed not in words but in the easing of the tension, the letting-go that was the physical sigh, and Meg stood at the sink and let the water run over her wrist and she did not think about metaphors, did not think about the body's rejection, did not think about the tolerance that had ended, did not draw the lines between the sting and the marriage and the change and the loss, because the lines were there without her drawing them, the lines existed without her permission, the way the IgE antibodies existed without her permission, the body doing what the body did, the mind doing what the mind did, and neither of them consulting her.

She dried her wrist. She looked at it. The sting site was visible -- a small red point at the center of the swelling, the puncture where the stinger had entered, the tiny wound that the tiny weapon had made, the weapon that the bee had died to deliver, the barbed stinger ripping from the bee's abdomen as the bee pulled away, the stinger left in Meg's skin, the venom sac still pumping, the bee eviscerated, the bee dead within minutes, the bee's life the cost of the colony's defense, and Meg had scraped the stinger out with her fingernail in the first seconds after the sting, the automatic response, the practiced response of a woman who had scraped stingers from her skin ten thousand times.

Ten thousand stings. And this one had been different. This one had crossed a line. This one had told her body something her body had not known before, or had known and had been ignoring, the way Meg had known things and had been ignoring them, the way the marriage had been failing and she had been ignoring the failing, the way the distance had been growing and she had been ignoring the distance.

She was making the metaphor. She had refused the metaphor and she was making it anyway, the mind doing the thing the mind did regardless of the refusal, the metaphor being the mind's immune response to the experience, the comparison being the inflammation, the body of the thought swelling beyond the site of the event, the meaning spreading the way the redness spread, and Meg let it spread, let the metaphor exist, let the comparison stand, because the refusal of the metaphor was its own kind of avoidance, was its own kind of not-looking, and Meg had done enough not-looking for one lifetime.

The sting was a sting. The body had changed. The practice would continue. The risk was managed. The EpiPen was in the glove compartment. The allergist appointment was made. The bees were in the hives. The season was continuing. And the wrist was swelling and the wrist was subsiding and the body was the body and the body did what the body did and the beekeeper did what the beekeeper did and the doing was the thing and the thing continued.