99/09/04

Despair, utter despair is the best way to describe what I felt at that moment

There is a disease called “Foulbrood” that is the kiss of death to a beekeeper. It appears in a hive and that is the end. Not only does it kill the bees eventually, but it spreads to all the other hives as well, it is incurable and always fatal. By the time you detect it its too late. Perversely the only action a beekeeper can take is to kill the bees and burn the hive.

Today I opened one of my hives, it was a weak one that I had nurtured through the summer and brought back from the brink of death twice. I could never understand why it wouldn’t thrive. Because there were so few bees in it early in the year I never saw the signs of Foulbrood. I re-queened it and split another colony to strengthen it quickly, I used every trick I knew to keep it alive and help it to live

Today I opened the brood chamber and smelled a whiff of the stench of the disease. I had been told about it before but never smelled it for real. I had no problem identifying it. Where there should have been beige healthy capped brood cells they were a greasy brown color and sunken, some had little holes chewed in them by workers who were checking why their sisters hadn’t emerged. Dead brood was seeded through all the frames of comb, and it stank like death. Every indicator was there, but I didn’t want to believe it. If one hive had it the others might very well be infected too. I couldn’t check because my equipment was contaminated. It all had to be cleaned before I could check the others, by then it would be too late in the day.

I put the hive together and walked back to my shed where I took off my suit. I was devastated.

A beehive isn’t just a box of bugs, it’s an entity. Each bee is the same as the next, but the hive has a personality. Some are gentle, some are aggressive, and some are unpredictable. Each colony is a part of me as I’m a part of it. I work to anticipate the needs of each hive and give them what they need to work, I watch their growth with the same anticipation and pride as a parent. I learn their idiosyncrasies, I watch them and help them where I can.

Sometimes I’ll sit in the summer sun between the hives and listen to their sound as they fly out and back in a never ending stream, working, working, working, sometimes I’ll sit beside them at night with my cheek pressed the wooden boxes. I feel the warmth, listening to the subdued buzz. In the winter I’ll press my ear to the side of the hive to reassure myself that life is still in there. I look daily as the weather warms, for signs of their awakening. I whisper to them in the fall that I’ll see them when the sun comes again.

Today I realized that all the work with these ones had been in vain, they were doomed. All six of the others may be doomed as well. I waited until 11 PM and I went out there and sat with them. All the bees were back, the night was cool and I sat there beside the hive. I thanked them for the time we shared, and apologized for what I needed to do. I stuffed newspaper in the hive entrance and flipped up the top cover, I poured a quart of gasoline through the feeder hole and closed the lid.

I wept as the hive sound rose in alarm, it rose to a pitch I had never heard before and dread hearing again. It took a minute or so till the tone and volume lessened gradually, then all that remained was echoing silence. Tomorrow I will go out there and set a match to it all, a few minutes after that all that will remain will be embers, memories and hope for my other hives.

I tried to tell myself that they’re just boxes of bugs.

They’re boxes of bugs, but I love them.