The Split

I saw queen cells, frames of worker bees, and an empty hive box yawning like a grave.

After one colony died at the end of last winter, I cleaned the hive box, removing desiccated bees a couple of inches thick from the bottom. I pulled out the frames; most had an unfinished comb—empty of brood or honey—but dark brown with age, instead of the fresh butter-yellow of new beeswax that smells fresh like a baby.

The second of my hives hummed and vibrated like an electrical transformer. When I inspected the hive, queen cells clung to the lid of the hive box and looked like small truncated stalactites.

The bees built comb and queen cells between the lid and the top of the frames. When I pried off the lid, stuck to the edge of the hive box with waxy propolis, I pulled apart the comb, and a queen cell nestled between the two. The larva was exposed. It looked like a glossy white grub. I laid the lid aside on the stacked wood, a few feet away, cautious and gentle to prevent damage to the soft, fresh comb.

The spring sun shone through the green leaves of the towering hackberry tree overhead, and the ground, the wood pile, and the hive boxes shivered in the dancing sun like a Renoir painting. The hum of the bees seemed to animate the shaking light. Everything was alive around me, fecund and expectant.

I inspected each frame of the living colony quickly and with more precision than last year. Frames bulged with capped honey and dripped slowly in sticky drops from cracks in the comb caused when I pulled the frames from the hive box.

I had not split a hive before and had only seen experienced beekeepers use a queen cage to capture the newly emerging queen from her cell to start another hive. But I saw queen cells, frames of worker bees, and an empty hive box yawning like a grave.

Convinced the bees would sort out what queen would survive and curious what would happen, I pulled two frames with capped brewed—a sign that young bees would soon emerge—and worker bees, crawling over the frame, tending to eggs recently laid, and gently slid them into the empty box. I placed empty frames around the two heavy with worker bees, giving them room to populate and reproduce until they were like a cloud spilling out of the box.

I took the box top with the delicate hills of comb and queen cells and the worker bees moving over it like rivulets running down hills after rain and placed it on the top of the box I just filled with new frames. I walked through the shade into the sun that began to push long shadows across the grass and blind me. With my hand, I shielded my eyes and turned to look back at the hive boxes. A single bee snuck out of the entrance and crawled up the front, then momentarily stopped, turning in a circle before it flew up and into the shade.