Each hive ought to be left with sixty pounds of honey to last out the cold months.
He’d taken too much.
Far too much.
My chest went numb with dread. I flipped through the supers, searching for their identifying symbols. Papa always branded little markers into each colony’s frames to keep them separated in case of disease.
I wasn’t sure which scenario would be worse—that he’d robbed one hive of its entire winter supply or that he’d taken an assortment of supers, letting in the cold and killing bees in each box.
I counted three different marks and pictured hordes of dying bees scattered across the frozen yard like macabre confetti.
Stupid.
How could he have been so stupid?
With the flowers burned and the cold settling in, there would be no chance for the bees to create more reserves on their own. We’d have to feed them a supplement as the months wore on, a combination of water and…
Sugar.
Laughter burst from my chest, bitter and biting.
We had no sugar.
McClearys had no sugar.
Had this been written into a drama, I would have found it too absurd to believe.
There in the kitchen, in the middle of the mess Samuel had left, I sank to my knees and clasped my hands together, begging God to ensure that the men would return from their run with sugar. It seemed so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, I feared they wouldn’t think of it.
As I prayed—whispering my pleas over and over again, as if their sheer quantity would somehow convince God to listen more carefully—tears spilled down my cheeks, drowning out the laughter. It was as though a dam had broken, the floodgates smashed wide open, and the river of worry and fear I’d been pushing aside since the night of the fire sprang free, ready to drown me. The sobs’ force brought me even lower to the floor, and I pressed my face to the floorboards, letting them cool my scalding abject misery.
I don’t know how long I lay like that, but eventually my brain began sorting out next steps.
I had to pull myself together before my sisters woke. Merry and Sadie couldn’t see me like this. I was the only adult in their life right now.
I had to be strong.
For them.
Pushing myself up, I wiped my eyes. I counted breaths, slowing them until my heart calmed its painful pounding rhythm. Blinking with unfocused eyes, I gazed over the mess waiting to be cleaned up. The enormity of the situation struck my chest, square on like a battering ram.
A whimper escaped from deep within me, and once again I lost myself weeping.
The bottoms of the brood boxes were littered with the dead.
We’d scooped out as many of the husks as we could, and were dumping them into a bucket to dispose of away from the hive. Honeybees liked to keep a clean living space and would carry out the dead or dying far from the colony to keep disease from spreading. I couldn’t imagine how the undertaker bees would be able to clear out the massacre and wanted to lighten their load, however I could.
If there were any undertakers left.
The damage was far worse than I’d feared. After waiting until the afternoon—the warmest time of the day—Merry, Sadie, and I created a makeshift tent with canvas tarps and lit several lanterns to warm the space before opening the boxes. It was unconventional, but I couldn’t think of a better way to check on the hives’ health.
What we found made me want to cry. A single hive could hold several tens of thousands of bees. Sam’s carelessness had cost us at least half of every box he’d opened. And more deaths would follow if we couldn’t somehow supplement their winter honey.
Each of the hives we checked seemed agitated, buzzing irritably at our unwelcome intrusion. I worried they might decide to attack, sacrificing even more of their numbers to protect their queens. We’d brought the smoker with us, but I was scared to use it, uncertain how far the temperature inside the hive would plummet if the bees stopped shivering.
Papa would have known what to do. I felt as though I was making up everything as I went along. In a wretched moment of utter selfishness, I wished he was here instead of at Mama’s side. This mess was too big for me to handle on my own.
“We have to get them sugar cakes,” I said, putting the lid on the final box with grim resolution and casting aside my treacherous thoughts.
“There truly isn’t any sugar left?” Merry asked, sitting down and folding her skirts about her goosefleshed calves. We’d decided to keep the tent up around the hives for a bit after the inspection, hoping it would help warm the boxes once more.
“We bought the only sack left at McClearys. I used the last of that on the cake for Rebecca.”
Sadie made an ugly face, picking at blades of dead grass. “And she didn’t even taste it.”
I pushed aside the memory of all that precious sugar smeared across the Danforths’ steps. I couldn’t salvage it any more than I could our relationship. Like all that sugar, our friendship seemed utterly lost.
“Has it been long enough, do you think?” Merry asked, leaning her head toward the makeshift tent.
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“I can’t remember ever seeing Papa do this. Can you?” Sadie asked, looking up dubiously at the canvas.
“Papa was never in a situation like this,” I said through gritted teeth.
“If it’s keeping the bees warm, maybe we should just leave it up?” She traced a series of shapes against the cloth.
“Then the bees wouldn’t be able to get outside when they need to.”
“Why would they want to go out in the cold?”
I wanted to howl with frustration. I felt damned no matter what I did. No one but me would be judged on how we got through this situation. No one would blame Sadie if every single bee starved to death. No one expected Merry to fix it.
I didn’t want this responsibility, this horrible and heavy weight pressing into my chest, stabbing its sharp talons around my throat and digging in until I feared I’d suffocate. Looking after my sisters was one thing, but adding the bees and other animals on the farm was too much. It was all too much, and I felt too young to handle it on my own.
Why, why, why had Samuel left me with this mess?
“I think…I think it’s been long enough.” I tried to keep my voice resolute even as my insides floundered. “Why don’t we blow out the lanterns and then take down the tarps?”
Merry didn’t budge from her seat, clearly not ready to leave the manufactured warmth. “How much sugar will they need?”