Excerpt:

We thought we had made it. We had put out tremendous flight on a balmy day in early March, and since then, we’d been making multiple trips to the fields closest to the hive. Sure, the nectar flows were weak, but our reserves were growing. Yesterday, we finally started capping some cells. Until we begin capping, our food can disappear in a day or two. Traditionally, the capping of the cells heralds our Great Rite, The Flush of Spring Bloom, and by evening word had come down from the Queen that we would gather at midnight. We feasted throughout the night on high-sugar honey, sure of a prosperous season.

Needless to say, I didn’t want to go out this morning.  Better to stay in.  Better not to break the low-humming trance juddering from thousands of rapidly moving wings.  Sometime in the night, I’d had a revelation.  I understood, on a primal level, the great spiritual cycle I was born into.  I felt the sugar reserves transforming into raw power, fueling my wing muscles.  I wasn’t bee – I was glucose, pure energy.  The urgency of rubbing wing to wing, the thrumming infinity of all of us humming as one – we were the honey. I knew it then, that the sound and vibration was a kind of karmic passcode.  These were my credentials. They echoed through the combs of the hive and confirmed that I belong…

The short story “A Late Frost” originally appeared in Illuminations, Volume 15 (2014), edited by Kimberly Fangman. Illuminations  is the award-winning artistic publication of Southeast Community College, where Kara taught English from 2008-2013.