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protection of the glass between her and the cloud of insects beyond the window, gazed at the swarm in fascination. "It was a lot bigger in the barn," she announced. "See? They're still coming out!"
    As Karen followed her younger daughter's gaze, her arm tightened around the little girl. thank God Otto got her out of harm's way! she thought, repressing a shudder.
    And Kevin had said it was "No big deal." No big deal! she repeated silently to herself. With millions of bees out there, how could it be no big deal?
    "What are they going to do?" Julie demanded,-instantly sensing her mother's doubts.
    "I don't know," Karen replied, her taut nerves starting to fray. "Maybe they'll spray them with insecticide or something." Molly grabbed her mother's arm with one hand and pointed toward the barn with the other. "Wow! Look at that, Mom!"
    Following Molly's gaze, Karen stared at the two figures emerging from the barn.
    Otto and Kevin Owen, their heads covered with netting, but wearing nothing else to protect themselves from the bees, were moving quickly across the yard, Kevin carrying a folded aluminum ladder, while Otto bore a large cardboard box. As Kevin began setting up the ladder, Otto put the box down, opened it, and took out what looked to Karen like a thin brush, perhaps a foot long, with a handle at one end, and an odd-looking contraption that seemed to be a metal can with an inverted funnel on top and a leather bellows fastened to one side. The ladder in place, Kevin knelt down and grasped the can. Pulling a match from his jeans pocket, he struck it Against the bottom step of the ladder and dropped it into the metal can. He blew into the can for a moment, then, apparently satisfied that it was burning properly, put the top back on.
    climbed up nearly to the top of the ladder, where his head and shoulders were almost level with the swarm, which clung to a branch two feet away from the boy. Otto handed him the brush, then picked up the box. Climbing up to the third step of the ladder, Otto held the box out so it was just below the swarm.
    As Kevin worked the bellows attached to the canister, smoke began pouring from the funnel top, enveloping the bees, which promptly began flying away from the noxious fumes, until the body of the swarm was two-thirds dispersed. Then Kevin gently brushed what remained of the swarm into the box.
    For a moment bees appeared to rise out of the box almost as soon as Kevin brushed them into it, but then everything changed. The flow of bees reversed, and the hovering horde began settling into the box.
    Moving carefully, Otto climbed back down the ladder and eased the box onto the ground.
    A moment later Kevin, too, had climbed down. As bees eddied in the air around him, he folded up the ladder and carried it back to the barn, Otto following him with d smoker and the brush.
    By the time they were done putting the equipment away, all but a few of the bees had settled into the cardboard box, and when Kevin and Otto emerged from the barn, Otto was carrying a cover for it. Otto put the lid on, picked up the box and carried it to the pickup truck parked next to the barn. Kevin, meanwhile, came into the house.
    "Are you all right?" Karen asked, barely able to believe what Kevin had just done. "Didn't you get stung?"
    "Why would they sting me?" Kevin asked. "I wasn't hurting them."
    Karen sank onto one of the straight-backed kitchen chairs, feeling drained by what she had just seen. "Where did they come from?" she asked, her voice hollow. "Were they in the barn all along?" She remembered Julie and Molly running in and out of the barn all day yesterday, and the day before. Had the swarm been there all along, concealed in the loft, an unseen danger to her two girls?
    Kevin shook his head to her question. "They probably just came in this morning," he said. "It was too cold for them last night. Once it gets down around fifty, bees can't fly much at all."
    "But where'd they come from?" Karen pressed.
    Kevin