The Law of Club and Fang

There is a beehive hanging in
the lower branches of a tree on campus, right in front of a classroom building on a main route. I noticed it one morning as I walked to work and was rather surprised that no one else seemed at all interested in it. It was a rather large stalactite with waxy combs pointing toward the ground and bees buzzing around in cliched activity. Weren't people afraid of being stung? But as I looked about, I guessed the students scurrying hither and thither were all too busy talking on their cell phones to notice this peculiar phenomenon in their midst. I stood alone in the crowd and watched it for several minutes more, certain that the campus facilities crew would locate it after a few days and remove it from my observation.

But as the days passed, the bees remained, and I began to suspect that they had gone unremarked. After all, the campus is really large, and the olive harvest was underway. The facilities crew couldn't be everywhere at once. I started to think I had a duty to report it. What if someone were stung? The location of the cluster made it only a matter of time before someone accidentally bumped it or purposefully behaved in some manner the bees would perceive as threatening, and then it would not be a matter of a single sting, it would be a massive defensive attack. And aren't some people seriously allergic to bee stings?

I didn't know what steps to take, so I searched the university's website for assistance and contacted the campus authority on bees and apiculture. He was happy to talk with me, but his response was not what I expected. He explained that it wasn't a beehive but an "open comb cluster," and it was likely the result of a late-season swarm. When a beehive becomes overpopulated, a new queen is born, and then the old queen takes a portion of the hive and attempts to relocate. This is called swarming. Scouts are dispatched to find a new home in a log or other protected space, while the remainder of the swarm clusters onto a temporary residence on a branch or side of a building. If the scouts are successful in time, the cluster moves into their new residence, and a new hive is formed. But if the scouts can't find a place or they take too long, the bees can't resist the urge to make combs and start producing honey, even in their unsuitable location. The result is an open comb cluster, and it means doom for the nascent colony.

The bee expert told me that the cluster would not have had time to produce enough food to see the bees through the winter and no beekeeper would want them because he would have to feed them all winter at great effort and expense. So, unless the cluster was actually bothering someone, nobody would trouble themselves with it. He went on to tell me that the open combs would leave the bees exposed to the wind, rain, and cold of winter until they starved to death or were eaten by birds.

So the bees remain in the tree, unnoticed and uncared for... except by me. Every time I pass, I see fewer and fewer of the insects clinging to the outside of the combs. Sometimes I search the ground beneath the cluster to see their small, shriveled bodies curled up in death. Why do I do it? I don't know. They're just bugs, right? And stupid bugs at that. They did this to themselves. Why didn't they find a better place to live? ...but I cannot stop. I cannot not look. And each day I scrutinize the tangled group remaining , desperately seeking movement from within the dark mass, and I say a little prayer for those that survive.