The Queen Is Dead, Long Live the Queen

I went to the silent hive box and rapped on the top. It sounded as hollow as death.

I fed the bees throughout the winter. Making the sugar syrup was a short and satisfying ritual, and I looked forward to it.

Through the changing December weather and the heavy frosted breath that January’s air made, the worker bees would ease their way out of the hive boxes as the still-warming sun rose and made the cold, clear air sparkle. The two colonies were in separate boxes. I noticed activity—on those sun-soaked days—and bees looping out of the hive box entrance to land on the lip of one of the water bottles filled with sugar syrup. They were greedy and drained the bottles faster than I had imagined.

February was cold, and the bees were quiet. The water bottles filled with sugar syrup never froze in the bleak February wind, but they stayed full. I waited.

Warmer days in March made the grass grow bright green. I still made sugar syrup, unwilling to stop, for the bees and for the enjoyment of watching sugar dissolve and thicken in a saucepan. Each week, I made the syrup, poured it into the water bottles, walked to the hive boxes in the corner of the yard, and sat them down with a gentle thud.

In the warmer weather, the bees from one colony clustered near the entrance to the hive box and flew in a frenzied cloud. The second colony was quiet. No bees hovered around its entrance. I suspected the worst.

On a sunny day in the first week of April, I shook out my bee suit and slid into it. I added lint and wood chips to my smoker and squeezed the bellows slowly until fragrant gray-white smoke curled out of the nozzle and hung heavily around me.

With a smoking can, I walked toward the corner of the backyard and the cloud of bees.

I went to the silent hive box and rapped on the top. It sounded as hollow as death.

With only a slight pull, the top came off. The inside was quiet. I used a hive tool to pry out the first frame. A few bees clung to a section of comb built across the black plastic foundation.

A quiet sadness floated around me as I pulled out each frame. Some bees clung to the wax comb, but the frames were eerily empty of honey or brood.

I gently pried the frames apart, lifting them out one by one. A handful of bees clung to each side of the frame. When I pulled the fifth frame out of the box, the queen, still and dead, was holding tight to the half-built comb. During hive inspections, I always look for the queen. In the quiet, under the still leaves of the hackberry tree, I found her easily.

A mournful hollowness fell on me for a moment. I laid the frame aside and removed the others. At the bottom of the hive box, the rest of the colony lay brown in a dead pile.

Hundreds of bees covered the floor of the hive box an inch deep. I ran my gloved hand through them. They were light and parted easily. I picked up the box, walked a few paces, and unceremoniously dumped the desiccated bees in a small mound.

I paused and watched for any sign of movement or life that I may have missed, but it was immovable and lifeless. With a small stick, I poked at the pile, sighed, then stood upright. Then, I picked up the hive box, placed it back in the tree's shadow, and readied it for another colony.