Tales from the Universe
Moral Dilemma: When something good grows beyond your ability to care for it, is letting part of it die a failure—or part of being responsible for what remains?
Fen kept bees.
Not many.
One hive behind his house.
It had been his father’s.
The box leaned slightly to the left, and the lid had been repaired so many times that almost none of the original wood remained.
Every spring, bees filled the garden.
Every autumn, Fen collected enough honey for himself and several jars to sell.
That was all.
He liked that it was all.
Then the queen split.
Fen found the swarm hanging from an apple branch.
Thousands of bees formed a living knot.
He stood beneath them with a basket.
His neighbor Vessa leaned over the fence.
“You know what to do?”
“No.”
“Excellent.”
Fen looked at her.
“Helpful.”
“My uncle kept bees.”
“Is he available?”
“Dead.”
“More helpful.”
Together they caught the swarm.
Fen built another hive.
Now he had two.
Two hives produced more honey than Fen could use.
He sold the extra at market.
People liked it.
The bees fed on wild thyme from the hills, and the honey tasted faintly herbal.
A merchant offered to buy everything Fen could produce.
Fen laughed.
“I have two hives.”
“Then get four.”
That sounded reasonable.
Four became eight.
Eight became twelve.
Fen stopped working at the mill.
For the first time in his life, something he loved also paid him.
People congratulated him.
“You found your thing.”
Fen liked that sentence.
His thing.
He built shelves for jars.
Bought better equipment.
Planted more flowers.
Hired Vessa’s son during harvest.
The bees multiplied.
At twenty hives, Fen needed help.
He hired two workers.
At thirty, he rented land.
At forty, the merchant requested twice as much honey.
“I can’t make twice as much.”
“Not yet.”
The merchant offered him a loan.
Fen bought more boxes.
More land.
More queens.
More equipment.
He stopped sitting beside the hives in the evening.
There wasn’t time.
At sixty hives, something changed.
Fen noticed it first in his hands.
They shook.
Not badly.
Just enough that he spilled tea.
He slept poorly.
There was always something unfinished.
A damaged box.
A sick colony.
An invoice.
A worker who needed paying.
A merchant waiting for shipment.
A farmer complaining that bees were gathering near his well.
Fen began carrying a notebook.
Then two notebooks.
Then a ledger.
The bees had once required a veil, a smoker, and patience.
Now they required accounting.
Vessa visited one evening.
Fen was repairing boxes by lantern light.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“How many now?”
“Seventy-three.”
“Why?”
Fen stopped hammering.
“What do you mean?”
“Why seventy-three?”
“Because that’s how many I have.”
“Why not fifty?”
“Because I already have seventy-three.”
Vessa nodded slowly.
“That is an interesting answer.”
The following spring was excellent.
Too excellent.
Nearly every colony split.
Fen caught as many swarms as he could.
By summer he had ninety-one hives.
He should have sold some.
He knew that.
But each hive represented income.
Each hive contained thousands of living creatures depending on him.
And each hive had come from something he’d built.
Selling them felt like cutting pieces off his own success.
So he kept them.
Then the drought came.
Flowers disappeared.
The hills browned.
The bees became hungry.
Fen began feeding them syrup.
Sugar prices rose.
The merchant lowered the price of honey.
Fen borrowed money.
Workers quit.
He worked from before sunrise until after dark.
Still colonies weakened.
One morning he opened a hive and found it dead.
Thousands of bees lay across the bottom.
Fen sat beside the box.
He felt as though he had murdered them.
The next week, another died.
Then three.
“You cannot save all of them.”
The beekeeper from the neighboring valley had come to inspect the colonies.
She was named Anik.
She had kept bees for forty years.
Fen disliked her immediately.
“What do you suggest?”
“Reduce.”
“How?”
“Combine the weak colonies. Sell some healthy ones. Let the poorest hives go.”
Fen stared at her.
“Let them die?”
“If necessary.”
“They’re my responsibility.”
“Yes.”
“Then how can I abandon them?”
Anik looked across the field.
Ninety-six boxes now.
Some strong.
Some weak.
Some almost empty.
“You’re confusing responsibility with preservation.”
Fen felt anger rise.
“Easy for you to say.”
“Yes.”
She pointed toward a hive.
“That colony needs feeding today.”
“I know.”
“That one has mites.”
“I know.”
“That roof leaks.”
“I know.”
“That queen is failing.”
“I know.”
“And you’re standing here arguing with me.”
Fen said nothing.
Anik looked at him.
“You have more responsibility than you have hands.”
Fen ignored her advice.
He worked harder.
That was his answer to everything.
He slept four hours.
Then three.
He stopped cooking.
Stopped visiting anyone.
Stopped repairing his own house.
When Vessa brought food, he ate standing up.
The bees continued dying.
One afternoon Fen collapsed.
Not dramatically.
He simply sat down between two rows of hives and discovered he couldn’t stand again.
Vessa found him.
She brought water.
Fen drank.
“I’ve ruined it.”
Vessa looked around.
Bees moved through the air.
“You have eighty-something hives.”
“Seventy-eight.”
“That’s more bees than anyone needs.”
“Eighteen colonies died.”
“Yes.”
Fen covered his face.
“I should have saved them.”
“With what?”
He didn’t answer.
Vessa sat beside him.
After a while she said:
“Your father had one.”
Fen lowered his hands.
“One hive.”
“I remember.”
“He never lost a colony.”
“Probably because he had one.”
Fen called Anik.
She returned the next morning.
“How many should I keep?”
She shrugged.
“How many can you care for?”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“No.”
She pointed at him.
“That’s what I’m asking.”
Fen looked across the field.
His first thought was sixty.
Then fifty.
Then forty.
Each number felt like defeat.
“How many do you keep?”
“Twelve.”
Fen laughed.
“You’ve kept bees forty years.”
“Yes.”
“And you only have twelve?”
“I like twelve.”
That answer irritated him.
Then, unexpectedly, it didn’t.
Fen kept twenty.
It took months to get there.
He sold healthy colonies cheaply to farmers.
He combined weaker ones.
Several died despite everything.
He paid his debts.
Barely.
The merchant stopped working with him.
Fen discovered he was relieved.
He returned to the mill two days a week.
People assumed his business had failed.
Some spoke sympathetically.
Others offered advice.
One man explained at length how Fen could scale production again.
Fen thanked him.
Then went home.
The following spring, Fen’s twenty hives became twenty-six.
He sold six.
Without hesitation.
Vessa noticed.
“Look at you.”
Fen smiled.
“Professional beekeeper.”
“Failed honey magnate.”
“That too.”
They sat behind his house.
The original hive was still there.
Still leaning left.
Fen had considered replacing it many times.
He never did.
Bees moved between the flowers.
He watched them until sunset.
He had forgotten how much he’d liked doing that.
Years later, a young beekeeper visited Fen.
She had nine hives and wanted twenty.
Then fifty.
Eventually a hundred.
Fen listened.
“Can it be done?” she asked.
“Certainly.”
Her eyes lit up.
“How?”
“I can show you.”
Fen poured tea.
Then he asked:
“Why do you want a hundred?”
She opened her mouth.
Stopped.
Fen waited.
Outside, thousands of bees worked among the thyme.
The young woman thought for a long time.
Finally she said:
“I don’t know.”
Fen smiled.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“That’s an excellent thing to discover at nine.”
He handed her the tea.
“A fire doesn’t become better because it consumes the whole forest.”
She looked toward the hives.
“How big should it get?”
Fen shrugged.
“Big enough to warm what you meant to warm.”
The bees continued working.
Twenty hives.
No empire.
Enough.