Bees in the wild have succumbed to a planet-wide die-off, taking almonds, avocados and honey down with them. But in a subterranean lab, three women doing “palliative care” with four remaining broods make a hopeful if gruesome discovery. Call it “Little Hive of Horrors.”That’s the setup, if nowhere near the payoff, of the “The Apiary,” a bright, strange and mesmerizing marvel by Kate Douglas, making her professional playwriting debut with this Off Off Broadway production. I say “almost too good” because a staging so sensitive yet confident could disguise whatever flaws may lurk in the text. The floor, the railings and even the paper in the beekeepers’ desktop inboxes are bumblebee yellow.

---

Persons: it’s, ”, Kate Douglas, Tony Kiser, Kate Whoriskey, Walt Spangler’s Organizations: Bees