So I began spring exceptionally excited this year, because my bees actually survived a Vermont winter.

I removed their Hive Alive fondant patty that acted as a food source through the frigid NEK months (worked really well, btw), and spent more time than I’d like to admit scanning our yard and the sides of the road whilst driving around, looking for those first dandelions of spring.

A couple weeks ago, those very first flowers sprung in our yard and the bees were absolutely churning with happiness. (It took everything in me not to say “buzzing with excitement” there; you’re welcome.)

Flitting from flower to flower, and coming back home wearing pollen jodhpurs for deposit into their BeeBank.

I was so excited, that I went out and got a second hive, just in case they got some nefarious ideas about swarming and not filling their existing hive with honey. (Which had happened 3 times already.) That way, I thought, if they started getting overcrowded I’ll just swap some frames out in the empty hive with populated ones and, presto…split hive suburban bee sprawl!
I built it, set it up next to the existing one, and waited…already thinking about filling the honey jars I bought so long ago and finally being able to mail them out to family and friends…

And then, last Friday, those dreams came crashing down…again.

That’s the handiwork of a bear.

Sometime in the early morning hours, a bear climbed over the garden fence and shredded my hives.

What’s more, this wasn’t the first time it’s happened…

Set the Wayback Machine for last spring, when I’d created a little “bee oasis” area with a pathway of crushed river gravel.

Not even a month after, both of those hives were destroyed via bear attack. He licked the frames completely clean of, comb, brood, pollen, and yes, all the honey.

I chalked the whole thing up to a learning experience, bought a new queen online to get the hive right again, and crossed my fingers they’d make it through the winter.

Which, as I mentioned, they did… And we had a good thing going back there until last week, when this jerk took them out.
Not only that, he came back the next day to rummage through our trash and take off with several other hive frames that apparently hadn’t been completely licked clean. (That’s the wooden thing he grabs before running off.)

There were little pockets of bees on a couple of the frames when I went out there in the morning, huddling together to try to stay warm. And because I couldn’t just let them all freeze to death, I put the hive back together so they’d at least have somewhere to hide and stay warm.

And perhaps, just perhaps, the queen may have leapt off one of the frames during the bear attack, and hid in the tall grass as thousands of her children were slain.
Maybe she found her way back to the hive after the carnage was over, and is there now…trying to rebuild her brood.

And plotting her revenge.

j.s.