The bumblebees, she realized, were starving. They’d been flying around the closed buds of mustard flowers for days, but no bloom had yet opened. If they didn’t slip their tongues in a pool of sugary flower water soon, they would begin to slow down, their bodies desperately trying to conserve calories. Eventually they would land on the dirt, crawl a while, and die. The poor bees; their timing was all wrong. The flowers weren’t due to open for another month. It wouldn’t do. The bees, she saw, began to bite the plants’ leaves. The next day the flowers bloomed. The bees drank the nectar and
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