I’m an optimist. Cheerful. So preternaturally upbeat at work that a colleague once asked what kind of antidepressant I take.
It’s an attitude that helps me power through daily confrontations with the worst elements of humanity and also sometimes gets me in trouble.
To wit: my beehive.
Two weeks ago, I peered into the hive and concluded with absolute certainty that the bees guarding the comb-heavy honey belonged to my colony.
Still, I sensed that something was not quite right.
Last weekend, Anne and I looked again. Off came the top of the hive and up swelled the bees. A good sign, I reasoned.
As we looked a bit deeper, we were confronted by the truth of the box: hundreds of dead bees littered the floor. More, still, were affixed to the comb, as though they had frozen trying to emerge into collective life. My colony was gone. The bees we saw up top were robbers.
Although new bees will fill my old hive later this month, I will never know where my original colony went or why. Maybe it was a queen problem, or insect wanderlust. But they left behind 100 pounds of honey, the sweet legacy of spring and summer past and a fragrant reminder that my garden is not always as sunny as it seems. Dana Coffield
