Mass Murder, Death and Destruction

Bring on the black!  We are all in a state of mourning here at Barker Park.

A few days ago, we noticed many of the bees from our hive on the outside of the hive

and tiny bits of what looked like chewed up wax all over the ground.

In the picture below, you can see the wax and those dark spots are all dead bees.

We called on our bee expert -- Grandpa Bodily who said he had read and heard about this phenomenon

but had never seen it in person.

It seems a rogue bee had gotten into the hive, stolen some honey and then triumphantly

gone out and gotten the rest of his hive to come raid ours.

Grandpa Bodily said the two hives will fight to the death.

Sure enough... our hive was decimated.

Here's a closeup-- see the fuzzy, yellow bees-- those were our good guys.

The bee in black is one of the bad guys.

 Here's a picture of one of the queen pods-- she would typically be protected inside that little cone-- but alas,

she was M.I.A.

 Byron opened up the hive and it was cleaned out.

Literally.

Grandpa Bodily said the raiding bees can strip a hive clean of honey and bees in two hours flat.

Both of our hives got hit.

It is so sad to drive by our hives and see nothing-- no little bees buzzing around.

Now I kinda know how farmers must feel after losing a crop.

It sucks.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, ends your lesson for the day on nature.

Tune in again, hopefully, we'll have a more positive lesson in the future.