They’re all dead.
I checked on them last week. Sure, there were a few dead ones. That happens. Worker bees only have about a six-week life cycle. They bring out their dead, even in the winter, and when you see bee corpses dumped outside the hive, it’s actually a signal the colony is working. As a courtesy, I quickly swiped the entrance reducer to make sure there wasn’t a buildup of dead bees, because despite the cold, the hive still needs airflow. The Chicago cold snap had just ended, with temperatures dropping into the negatives. I hoped they had made it through. As I brushed away debris, excitement and terror sprang upon me when two guard bees shot out of the hive at lightning speed, attempting to sting me through my thick layers.
Bingo. I was thrilled. My hive was indeed alive, and if they were that quick to defend their turf, it signaled to me they were doing just fine. They had made it through the cold snap, all the way into early February, and they were going to thrive in the coming months. Since it was still cold, I didn’t want to open the top frame to check their food reserves. The weather was warming into the 40s in the coming days, so I decided to wait.
And then the day came. A week later, on February 11th, it was a beautiful, sunny, dare I say warm, 46-degree February day in Chicagoland. It was time to check the food reserves.
I was so excited to say hello to my bees, to give them all the updates they had missed over winter. I still needed to work quickly—just a peek into the candy board to see how much they had gone through, then close it back up. But there was a stillness in the air when I approached the hive. You can’t really hear the hive unless you put your ear up to it, but there’s something about it you can sense. Some part of our biology can detect the soft hum of bees. And that day, I didn’t feel it. I told myself, “Jenna, you know they’re alive. You just saw them.”
When I opened the candy board, I saw they had eaten their sugar reserves, but dead bees were piled in the corner. Oh no. Hopeful, I thought maybe those ones had just gotten cold. The rest had to be alive. I decided to quickly remove the candy board and look deeper, just to make sure I saw some sign of life.
There were none.
I pulled the boxes, one by one. All that remained was a sad, lifeless graveyard. Grief hit. All of my friends, my garden companions, my diligent and beautiful pollinators, were gone.
I’ve read that this happens. You lose hives, especially over a Midwest winter. I’ve read that a novice beekeeper should expect to lose one or two. I’ve read that colony collapse, disease, and other hive disasters are almost inevitable if you keep bees long enough. And yes, they are ultimately just bugs. But man, that moment really hurt.
That being said, like the bees, I’m going to carry on. Loss is a part of living, and I learned that stewardship doesn’t guarantee survival — it just means you show up anyway. And this spring, I’ll show up again.
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