The story is really nice, brings at my mind when "old people from the place" harvested honey from the "Quercus suber" trees in the ancient way. When varroa came the story finished.
And there are two very good points:
<"Smith still remembers the smell of sweet anise oil clinging to his father, who kept a bottle of it in his bibbed overalls." <
When I smell the aromatic plant Pistacia lentiscus I remember any good hunting days with my father. Ah! the chilhood.
<“The old myth was, ‘If you give the bees away, you were giving part of yourself away and they’d die. But if you sold them, it was all right,’†Gibby said.<
OOOOOhhhhhhhhhhh, totally right!!!!!!!!!!!!!