Going out to die

xC0000005 · #1 11-06-2009, 03:01 PM

I have the world’s most depressing fence. White vinyl, forty feet long and six feet high, most of the time it’s about as beautiful a border as any beekeeper could ask for. In the fall though, it always makes me sad. The fence this time of year is splattered with tiny black spots; each a dead bee. These aren’t the summer foragers I hear humming home early in the morning. Those bees stay out too late and wind up camping out on a flower. They return in the dawn hours loaded with pollen and nectar. The fence bees will never return. They have left the hive of their own volition and taken a position on the post where they wait. Wait for darkness. Wait for rain. Wait for death.

So I adopted one.

I found her on the fence after dark as rain began rustling the maple leaves. Her fur was worn and her wings had the dull edges that come from a lifetime of flights. I ushered her into a queen cage and took her inside. There I set her by the laptop and for the next three days she was my pet. I fed her honey and kept her warm and dry and safe. My daughters came to look at her in the afternoon and said “She looks sad.” I suppose they were right. A bee is meant to fly, and a forager to forage. “You should let her go home,” they said. So I did. I opened the cage and let my adopted forager go free. She circled my head a few times and flew back to the fence. This time I let her stay.

I know as a beekeeper that all bees die. Some get devoured by wasps, some crippled by mites, and more than I like are smashed with a rolled up newspaper by a teenage daughter. The “lucky” ones will get the chance to freeze to death in the outer layer of a pig-pile of bees. Still, I feel for the fence bees because they are victims more of timing than anything else. Now is the time for the colony to tighten its belt. So the old foragers leave. There’s nothing magic about the fence other than that it’s close enough to the hive to make it on an empty stomach and far enough away to not attract more scavengers to the hive. Leaving is the last service they can offer when their wings are too spent to gather pollen and the nectar is all gone. In a life of service that begins with from the moment they hatch going out to die is just the final task for a bee called “worker”. They do it well.

Barney · #2 11-06-2009, 04:09 PM

Sad but true. However this type of post gives you renewed appreciation for all our pet bees and the wonders they give us.
Barney

AltamontBee · #3 11-06-2009, 06:09 PM

Thanks for posting this-I enjoyed reading it, as I too get a little sad when bees die.
Another beekeeper keeps a few hives in the garden that I help run at the school where I teach. I was out there after school this week with about 6 students. We looked at the hives, and they noticed some dead bees nearby. We talked about how bees overwinter, and how many of them don't make it through the winter. Then I let them put there ears against the hive and listen to the hum of the living bees inside. A nice experience with some good kids and some good bees.

Jennifer