Like Bees to Honey | gxg

18. Crafting Bee

Since Riley was otherwise occupied, Sabina enlisted her sisters to help her put together the candle-making kits. After taking an inventory of all the supplies pulled from the attic boxes, she planned two types: one with bricks of beeswax and two small glass containers that could be used to make jar candles, and the other with wax sheets, each stamped with a honeycomb pattern, enough to roll into three tapers.

While Sabina set about sorting the wax and wicks, Helena used her graphic design skills to turn Sabina's chicken-scratch instructions into a beautiful document that was actually legible. At the other end of the table, Christina wrote out a set of labels with High Valley Honey and contact information on one side and an ink drawing of a smiling bee on the other. Small cardboard boxes they usually used for local delivery were the perfect size to fit the kits, nestled safely in a bed of shredded paper, and Sabina tied each one shut with twine.

On the first day of the market that week, she took fifteen kits. It was probably overkill, she thought when she had to find room for them on the table between the lollipops and candles and jars of honey, but she would rather have extra than risk running out. Besides, she was optimistic about this product. She brought an extra table, a spindly three-legged thing that she balanced at the end of the big table, and on this, she set out one of the kits with its lid open and contents on display.

Riley poked through this box, eyebrows raised. "Do I get an employee discount? I think my grandma would love one of these but this tourist pricing hurts my soul."

Sabina thought about how they had brushed her off that weekend. Maybe she had been asking too much of them lately - she did owe them a lot, considering she couldn't run this stand without them. At least not without giving up the mead, one of their best-selling products. "You don't need to pay. After all, you've been getting up at 3 AM all summer for me."

Their eyebrows crooked. "I appreciate your concern for my life-endangering lack of sleep, but I don't need charity. Just give me thirty percent off."

"Seventy-five."

"Fifty."

"Fine." Sabina laughed and made a note in her inventory book.

The kits didn't fly off the shelf that first day, but they did generate a lot of interest. Almost everyone who stopped by the stall asked a question or paused to peer at the display box. Late in the afternoon, when the produce sellers had long since packed up and Sabina was considering doing the same before she turned into a puddle on the searing pavement, a pair of elderly men in golf shirts stopped to poke through the display box. One of them held the instruction sheet up to the sun and squinted at it.

"Do you have video instructions?" he asked, his voice as fine and soft as the wrinkles on his brow. "I learn everything from YouTube these days. It's so much easier when someone is explaining it to you."

"Not yet," Sabina said, her mind already racing. "But that's a great idea. I can make a video. Let me give you our social media."

The men took a kit home, the fourth sale that day (five, counting Riley).

That night, she wrote a script for a video in which she demonstrated how to use the kits to make tapers or jar candles. Christina agreed to film, and Sabina fumbled through it twice, feeling stiff and uncomfortable, before her sister let out a loud sigh and said, "Just act natural."

"I'm trying!"

"You sound like you're filming one of those puberty 101 videos for fourth graders."

Sabina made a face. "Okay, that's just mean."

"Just pretend you're having fun."

"But I am having fun."

"Really? I can't tell. Have you considered this exotic technique called a smile?"