When a wild honeybee colony claims an empty backyard hive, their arrival could be a divine metaphor for a new relationship—until the silence of the wax moths proves how a story can outpace reality.
BY STACEY BALKUN
“BABY, COME SEE! Come see!” Morgan called to me from across my backyard. He stood sweating in the shiftless late spring air, his dark hair tied back in a low ponytail, bee after bee zooming into the side of his head and bouncing off.
Morgan had once again stayed the night. It was a cool morning for a backyard breakfast, and while I was inside brewing a second batch of coffee, he’d been watching anoles rustle across the fence, shoulders back, his head cocked to the left when the first bee smacked into his head then teetered into the tiny door of the white Langstroth hive which had stood empty for years until just now. I ran out and met my partner’s eyes, shocked wide open and green. I was just as bewildered as him: once an aspiring beekeeper, I had given up on ever catching a swarm, but a colony had inexplicably chosen my yard as their home.
It was late April, long before the weeks of endless rain that would leave the neighborhood flooded and soggy for days on end. Honeybee swarm season was long gone, or so the experts said. This sudden appearance made no logical sense, so I did what I always do: I folded the situation into a poem.
Like most humans, I’m drawn to story. We crave narrative, image, and meaning: the invisible blueprints we lay across the world as we build our own lives. Storytelling helps us make sense of the chaos, shaping our experiences into understanding and maybe even growth. Through verbal expression, we work through our most confusing ideas and feelings, and so for months, I imbued the growing colony with metaphorical meaning and emotional value, believing its sudden appearance in my life to be linked to Morgan’s. Though we’d apparently been in the same room several times over the past ten years, we had just met and immediately fallen for each other. As long as the bees were happy, our new relationship would be successful, too.
Then a terrible stillness settled. May’s lushness decayed into June’s humidity. The colored patio lights drooped haphazardly from the chain link fence and young fruit trees remained unswayed. The hum I’d grown accustomed to was gone. The cat’s claw vines and volunteer rain trees struggled upward against my weekly razing, but no bees lilted across the yard or through the wet branches; no bees zoomed straight into my awkward body as I pulled weeds and gathered fallen limbs.
After weeks of denial that something could be wrong, I gathered the courage to inspect the hive. For the first time, I finally donned the proper gear and lifted the top off the boxes. I removed the top box and placed it down on the weedy dirt to better inspect its contents: a few frighteningly dark brown honeycombs expanded outward, almost voluptuous in their curved organic forms, but empty. The boxes below, also empty. I had so closely aligned the hive with my new partner that I couldn’t think beyond the metaphor: if the hive was gone, then surely my relationship was over. When I reached the rotten bottom board, I found the larvae of wax moths, wriggling against the dark, damp wood, like short, pale ghosts. Their appearance meant the hive was dead. I bumbled, trying awkwardly to remove the useless veil and leather gloves so I could wipe my foolishly crying face.
Even the earliest poems rely on metaphor to make sense of the mysterious. Sappho, Greek poet from over 500 years B.C., has always been someone I turn to for wisdom and comfort. Because papyrus decomposes over time, we are only left with fragments of her work, but the effect is artfully devastating in its concision and parataxis. We only have remnants of image and emotion, as in Fragment 146: “neither for me honey nor the bee” (translated by Ann Carson). She doesn’t extrapolate on the metaphor, but the meaning is clear: sweetness comes with a sting. There must be risk for there to be reward, and Sappho longs for the comfort of ambivalence rather than the former two options.
For years I had dreamed of bees, and then they had appeared, just like that, on their own. I became convinced that Morgan had brought them, somehow, that his presence meant magic. We had just committed to each other after a few months of casually dating, and here it was: the sign I didn’t realize I was looking for. I was convinced they arrived just to bless our new relationship. I felt the same way about my blood orange tree, which had just flowered for the first time since my ex-husband and I planted it so many years ago. Nothing grew here when it was ours.
Newly married, my ex and I had tried to set roots. Planting the blood orange tree had been our first act of moving into this little yellow house, a 1950s bungalow so out of place on a street of historic, rundown shotguns. We drew up plans for a garden and began collecting cinder blocks. I ordered a beginner beekeeper’s set, complete with a brand new 10-frame hive, determined to rescue a swarm sometime in the near future. We growing our homestead along with our marriage: planting and building our way towards a future we determined would be rich and fulfilling. I never expected him to lose interest entirely, letting the weeds reclaim what we had worked so hard to clear. I never expected him to be remarried before our divorce was even finalized, though I think a fragment of me was always prepared to make this house my home, alone.
Adapting the house to single life meant learning to make adjustments to fulfill a completely different set of needs. I was here alone, now, and it felt much bigger than before. I cooked too much food. I let the rain tree saplings go too long, eventually borrowing a neighbor’s saw to work at the trunks which only ever resprouted in multitudes, impossible Hydras. I quickly realized I needed to pare it all down. One of my first acts of reclamation was to disassemble three of the old raised garden beds, as they required too much upkeep for one person alone. I tamped down the soil and removed the rows of cinderblocks, placing six in a circle in the backyard to shape a fire pit, where I now toss fallen branches and pulled weeds.
Hidden under the canopy of the oak tree and shaded by all the houses enclosing the little yard, the blood orange sapling struggled under the weight of white blossom. Never in my five years of marriage had it flowered, but this year, it burst white for the first time. It waited until this year: the year after I repainted the living room, changed out the old furniture, built a fire pit, and raked up several seasons of fallen leaves, reclaiming the space as my own. I was dating again; I had met someone special. When I first saw that thick smattering of white buds among the rough green leaves, I wept: surely this bouquet was also a metaphor, a sign that even nature was on my side. I was laying new blueprints over the past, reenvisioning a new life over the old, leaving open gaps for growth.
When I had not only flowers but also bees, I was hoping for honey.
Every morning of the hive, I’d have coffee in the yard after Morgan left for the West Bank where his company was rebuilding a house that had been devastated in the most recent hurricane. I’d watch the bees flit about and reflect on all of the struggles I was facing in my new partnership as we learned each other’s boundaries and expectations. There were many tensions and doubts, a few fights and tears. Because so many of our needs aligned, the ones that didn’t felt magnified, terrifying. When he avoided my questions, I’d pull to an excessive distance. When I was incommunicative, he’d respond with unwarranted frustration. We struggled in these moments in which we felt the other’s behavior mirrored that of our respective ex’s, responding to the past rather than the present. We are still working hard to learn each other’s boundaries and to avoid fanning the flames of resentment. We are both new at new love, and both pretty stung from the failures of communication we faced in our previous marriages.
I hadn’t checked on the hive after two weeks, as the beekeeper guidebooks had insisted I should. I had to tend to spring semester business and summer travel. Almost two months went by before I noticed slowed activity around the hive entrance. When I opened the lid and found the still, delicate honeycomb, I realized I had neither honey nor the honey bee. This sudden absence was a risk I didn’t know I had taken. The loss stung me deeply, and I knew immediately I could have done more for them. I didn’t at first offer myself any grace or patience: I messed up, and here I was, facing the consequences of my actions, alone. It felt like a break-up. Even more painful was my certainty that this would lead to a romantic break-up. At the time, it felt inevitable: the story I had told myself became more powerful than logic, reason, or love.
I don’t have my coffee outside anymore. It’s too hot now, too still. Morgan, a woodworker, has offered to build me a new bottom board, to help me fix up the hive and start anew. I now know not to project meaning onto this gift but to take it as it is: a generous offer to use his skills in order to bring happiness into the space I share with him; a kindness to bring us closer together. It’s simple and sweet, and not metaphorically loaded.
After wax moths have infested a hive, it’s best to burn the frames. This I learned much later, after a deep dive into Facebook groups and YouTube blogs. A search for “bees disappeared!” quickly revealed every newbie panicking in surprise; every seasoned beekeeper clucking their tongues knowingly. In the apiarist community, hive beetles and wax moths are considered to be a lesson in patience, an issue all new beekeepers will face if they don’t take precautions (and often, they don’t know they must take precautions). Tending to a hive is an endless tutorial on pivoting and adjustment, and once the bees have absconded, there’s nothing else to do but start over.
Today, I venture into the backyard. I am still in love with its potential: a future patio, a brick pizza oven, or a greenhouse. Maybe a new hive someday. Right now, tangled vines weave along the back fence and the sounds from Broad Street float through it. Against the engine whirrs and recorded dialogue of the kneeling buses is an absolute stillness. In a few months, it will be cool and dry. The blood orange branches are quiet and still, but the dozen hard, green spheres hidden in the dark leaves continue to ripen.
In January, I’ll pick the sweet fruit and be surprised, as always, by the rich redness below the orange peel. I know what I want, now. I walk the infested frames over to the fire pit and lay them over the kindling.
Stacey Balkun is the author of Sweetbitter & co-editor of Fiolet & Wing. Her creative and critical work has appeared in Attached to the Living World, Best New Poets, Mississippi Review, and several other volumes. Stacey holds a PhD in Literature from the University of Mississippi, Oxford, where she was awarded the Holdich Scholar Award, and an MFA in Poetry from Fresno State. She has been granted fellowships and grants from the Modern Language Association, PEN America, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in support of her writing. Stacey teaches online for The Poetry Barn and the University of New Orleans. www.staceybalkun.com
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