Bee with a HAPPY banner

Your uncle Harold has finally stopped sulking about the hive. The swarm came off the apple tree on Tuesday, all of them roaring like a kettle, and settled on the washing line between my good linen and the neighbour's bloomers. Harold stood there with his smoker and said nothing for a full minute, which is the longest I have known him to be quiet since 1961.

Among them was one bee bigger than the rest, fat as a Sunday loaf, with wings laced like a chapel window. She had a strip of ribbon tied round her middle, the sort we used for the Whit walk, and across it someone had written HAPPY in capitals. I asked Harold who had done it. He said he hadn't, and that bees don't read, and I said that was a poor excuse from a man who has read the same cricket almanac every winter since he retired.

We caught the swarm in an upturned crate and I kept the ribbon bee back to look at. She walked along the edge of the crate, banner dragging, and every so often she stopped and turned to face me as if waiting for me to say something sensible. I said, "Well, you look pleased with yourself." She buzzed once, sharp, and flew off over the hedge toward Mr Cairns's allotment.

Which is why I am writing. Mr Cairns rang this morning to say his marrows have never been so fat, and that a bee wearing a ribbon has been sitting on his gate every evening, looking in. I told him to leave her be. Come up at Easter and bring the good tea. Harold wants to show you the crate, and I want to see whether you can yet tell a drone from a worker.

Love, Nan