We did our first check, which I talked about the post from April 2013, noting that the queen was out and the bees seemed to be buzzing away. There were decent numbers of bees coming and going from the hive each day, things seemed to be as they should be. We did our second check about a week after the first and the bees were just ... gone. There were a few dead bees lying on the bottom of the hive, but only about five. There were a couple nice pieces of comb started, both about the size of C's hand. One even had lots of nice little babies, the other a touch of honey. But no bees. Well, that's a lie. There were about three bees, just hanging around, seeming confused about where everyone else had gone. We joked later (when we were finally able to joke about it) that they must've been the bees no one else liked. We figured they must've gotten sent to scout new pollen sources and all the other bees hightailed it while they were gone. We were really sad. We tried for a long time to figure out what went wrong, but we finally came to the conclusion that sometimes things just do. We've tried to rectify any issues or problems that may have existed with the old hive by getting the new, pre-made one. I will definitely miss the little windows that C put in the one he built especially for me to be able to peek in without disturbing the bees, but I'll live. It's more important that they stick around to pollinate lots of plants, and maybe make some honey, than that I get to peek at them whenever I please.
But we comfort ourselves by telling ourselves that all those other bees are probably still out there somewhere, pollinating away, improving the ecosystem. The world needs more bees, and hopefully we've helped make that happen in some small little way. And we're trying again this year! Fingers crossed!
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