Sergeyich takes his bees out of the grey zone

Sergeyich takes his bees out of the grey zone in a departure shaped by two linked necessities: the danger of renewed bombardment and the dependence of the hives on his care. Leaving is not simply an escape from the war. It means taking the bees to a place where they can perform their natural work, while abandoning the home that has protected him and the neighbor he cannot bear to leave behind.

The bombardment and the decision to leave

After a night of bombardment, Sergeyich goes to the bee-shed and finds the wooden walls trembling. When he opens the door, thousands of bees rush about in the darkness, beating against the walls; some escape into the yard, and one strikes his cheek. He shuts the door, whispers that they are terrified, and recognizes that he cannot reassure or protect them from inside the shed. He returns to his house and waits for the shelling to end, a long vigil lasting about four hours.

At dawn, the village grows quiet, though the birds do not sing. Sergeyich checks whether Petro is alive by sending a one-word text, and Petro replies with the same word, without the question mark. Relieved, Sergeyich begins gathering his things. His departure follows the immediate shock of the bombardment, but it also answers a practical problem: a beekeeper can move the hives away from danger, whereas the bees themselves cannot understand the war or choose another place to live.

Preparing the hives and the journey

Sergeyich starts his green Lada after it has stood unused for a long time and fills three canisters with petrol from an iron barrel. The vehicle has room for more luggage than he needs, and the prospect of another shell falling on house number 37 makes the possibility of losing what he leaves behind concrete. He packs clothes and rubber boots, but also two books from the sideboard: Nikolai Ostrovsky, with dollars inside, and War and Peace, with hryvnias.

The apiary requires its own careful preparation. Sergeyich must close the hive entrances so the bees will not scatter on the road, load the hives one by one onto a flatbed trailer, cover them against the rain, and tie them securely. He also packs jars of honey, treating them as portable value: honey holds its worth regardless of whether it comes from buckwheat or mixed wildflowers. The weather helps make the move possible. At about ten degrees, with calm rain, the hives are less likely to overheat; in warmer conditions, Sergeyich would have needed to travel at night because jolting roads can agitate bees and raise the temperature inside their hives to dangerous levels.

The departure is not only a matter of hauling equipment. As rain begins, Sergeyich looks at the walls, trees, fences, gates, doors, and windows of his home and understands them as the protection he had mistaken for something he himself provided. He had thought he guarded his land and his little world; only when he has to leave does he realize that the home has been guarding him. The rain seems to him like the sky’s tears, and he cannot know whether he will return or what he will find if he does.

Pashka’s farewell

Before leaving, Sergeyich stops at Pashka’s house to hand over the key to his front door. Pashka urges him to stay for tea and proposes a toast, but Sergeyich refuses the drink. Pashka then asks to be driven to the end of his street, before the turn toward Karuselino, so that he can see his neighbor off. Wearing his red jacket with the white cross on the back, he accompanies Sergeyich farther down the road than they had agreed because he cannot bring himself to say goodbye.

At last, the two men extend their hands and embrace, clasping one another tightly before quickly loosening their hold. Sergeyich points back toward the village and tells Pashka that he has left a three-litre jar of honey on the kitchen windowsill for him. He then gets back into the car and drives away with six hives beneath a tarpaulin. In the rear-view mirror, Pashka’s white cross dwindles as he walks home with his head bowed. The gift of honey gives their separation a material form: Sergeyich cannot remain beside his friend, but he leaves behind something made possible by the bees they have both lived alongside.

Crossing out of the war zone

On the road, Sergeyich passes a queue of cars and people waiting with their headlights off. The war has placed these travelers in a new line; he drives cautiously past them, then reaches an empty stretch where no car approaches and none appears in his rear-view mirror. He switches on his high beams and experiences a sudden, almost youthful excitement, as if he has burst into open space. He knows the feeling is false and unjustified, but it still gives him reassurance.

He leaves behind the forces on both sides and the bombardment, conscious that he has not taken part in the war so much as found himself living in it. Yet the bees make departure more urgent than it would be for him alone. They cannot move between peace and war by choice; they must be allowed to gather and spread pollen, the work for which, in Sergeyich’s understanding, nature and God appointed them. His destination is therefore not merely somewhere farther from the guns, but a place where blossoming herbs and fruit trees will supply the forage they need. At checkpoints, officials inspect his passport and the paper issued to him; after several brief stops, he crosses into Zaporizhzhia Region. The sign does not fulfill a childhood dream, but its passage brings tears to his eyes, as though a great weight has fallen from his shoulders.

The bees’ life beyond departure

The move does not end Sergeyich’s responsibilities; it relocates them. In summer, the sound of bee wings becomes for him proof not only that the colony is healthy but that he himself is present. He sees himself as the representative of the bees’ legitimate interests, while leaving their internal life to them. He monitors their health, drives wasps from the hives, uncaps honeycombs for extraction, and collects wax and pollen. The queens live, reproduce, and die according to nature, with replacements born in the same hives; Sergeyich’s role is care, not command.

His attention to the colonies also supplies a way of reading human life, though the analogy remains his own interpretation. Watching guard bees evict weakened drones before winter, he sees workers that gather pollen and build combs contrasted with consumers that do not contribute. Nature’s visible order fascinates him, and he repeatedly judges human society against it. The bees’ dependence on careful tending is thus more than an explanation for why he travels: it becomes the daily structure through which he gives meaning to work and to survival.

That care continues in small, physical acts. When a swarm threatens to leave a pear tree, Sergeyich sprays it from below with water, wetting the wings and quieting the buzzing before he gathers the bees into a trap with a dustpan. He watches the last bees crawl down toward the rest rather than be left without their swarm and queen. Later, an explosion destroys one of the hives: Sergeyich presses his face into the earth as the blast sounds above him, and, when he rises, the hive has been replaced by a crater, splintered wood, and a piece of comb. Across these reversals, the bees are neither a mere emblem of peace nor a life untouched by war. They are actual, vulnerable creatures whose needs compel Sergeyich to move, work, and continue caring amid danger.