Sacred Sierra

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Authors: Jason Webster
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though by taking so much time the change in season was coiling itself like a spring: when it finally came it would be let off like a gun.
    The new flowers had brought an influx of bees. Salud, never happy with insects of any kind, was frantic at the invasion but I was fascinated by them, watching as they buzzed around the garden and darted in and out of the house through the open windows. They were honeybees, I was certain, which meant that not far from us there must be some hives. Sorting through some of the wreckage of the other
masos
nearby I’d come across one item that looked very much like an old hive of some sort: pieces of thick cork bark tied together to form a kind of cylinder. It was bent out of shape now, but if I was right about what it was, it suggested beekeeping had been a traditional activity up here.
    I couldn’t remember how far bees would fly to collect nectar, but it couldn’t be more than a few miles. One clue came from the way the bees would always get stuck on the east window – one we rarely opened – when they entered the kitchen. It was as if they knew that ‘east’ meant home. Wherever the hives were, I reasoned, they must be in that direction.
    One afternoon I decided to go down and investigate, heading over the terrace fields and towards the dirt track that led to Arcadio’s almond groves. It was another hot day and I was wearing just an old pair of holey jeans and a T-shirt. A straw hat kept the worst of the sun’s intense rays from the top of my head.
    Strips of plastic were hanging mysteriously from the almond trees when I reached Arcadio’s fields, but there was no sign of any beehives. However, I noticed that the sound of the bees, that wonderful background hum of life and energy, was several decibels higher than up at the house. The almonds weren’t in bloom, so it seemed I might be on the right track.
    I carried on, pushing my way through the grass, trying to let the sound of the bees itself lead me to their hives. Finally I caught sight of something above my head. I walked up to the terrace wall and stood on tiptoe: there in front of me were at least fifty beehives, wooden boxes painted grey, with thousands upon thousands of bees hurrying in and out of tiny holes at the base of each one. My eyes widened as two thoughts simultaneously crossed my mind: firstly of the enormous amount of honey that must be produced right here under our noses; and secondly that I mustn’t breathe a word of this to Salud. It was bad enough with all the spiders, wasps and sundry beetles and flying bugs that disturbed her up here in the mountains; if she discovered the presence of a vast bee colony this close she might leave and never come back.
    At that moment I heard the familiar sound of Arcadio’s old Land Rover driving down the track behind me. Soon he had pulled up and was walking over with his usual crusty half-smile.
    ‘These hives yours?’ I asked him as we shook hands. He glanced over at the bees, then back at his car, then finally looked me in the face.
    ‘Forty-five euros each,’ he said. A series of thoughts passed through my mind in the space of about a second: what was he talking about? I wasn’t asking how much they were. But then maybe in the back of my mind I
was
interested in having some hives of my own. Why else was I down here investigating in the first place? The old man knew perfectly well what I was after, more than I did myself. But what on earth was I going to say to Salud? Yes, but think of the honey we’d have! Surely she’d grow to love them once we’d lined the cupboards with jars of our own honey.
    ‘I’ll take two,’ I said.
    But Arcadio didn’t want me to take two of the hives from down here: he wanted me to have a couple from some other hives he had higher up the mountainside, on the slopes of Penyagolosa.
    ‘We’ll go and pick them up now,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t take long.’
    We set off in his hard, utilitarian vehicle down the mountain and along

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