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The day before we all met in San Miniato I was thinking about bee stings and their scent. A honeybee’s final mark in the physical world is a perfume. When she stings, she dies. As the stinger rips out her stomach she leaves behind a perfumed reminder of her death.

Isopropyl acetate is the molecule, specifically an ester (finally years of studying organic chemistry serve a purpose) responsible for the scent that lingers on your skin after a sting.

Of course it isn’t that romantic, the smell is more of a practical warning to her sisters. A way of saying — this is the threat. But I find it poignant that the last thing the honey bee offers is a memory encoded in smell.

The memory of scent is what lingers after the four days trying to make sense of the delicate ecologies that support the “luxury” that many people come to Tuscany to experience.