The day of the swarming riot was the last really good day of the raspberry bloom. The effect of the shower had been transient. The weather turned hot and dry. The honey dried up in the flowers, and the discouraged bees worked only for an hour or two early every morning.
“If it would only rain—really rain hard!” groaned Alice.
“Unless it does, the honey-flow is certainly at an end,” said Carl, anxiously. “The berry bloom won’t last long in this drought and I’m certain there’s nothing like a thousand dollars’ worth of honey in the supers now.”
“No—or five hundred,” added Bob.
In fact, the earliest raspberry blossoms were now replaced by green fruit. If rain should fall in time, the later bloom might last for a week more, and there was the basswood flowering still to come. But the weather remained hot and dry, and there was no dew at night. Alice’s garden withered, though she watered it every evening. Twice clouds rolled up from the south, and they heard thunder. It must have rained within ten miles, but not a drop fell at the apiary.
“Even half an hour’s shower would mean a couple of days’ honey-flow,” said Bob.
But it did not come. Now and again a little moisture in the air set the bees working for an hour or two, but most of the time they were idle. As usual in a honey dearth they became bad-tempered. Their owners could no longer stroll about among the hives with impunity. The bees came into the cabin, attracted by one of the pails of candied honey, and would have carried every morsel of it away if they had been permitted. Robber bees were prowling about every hive, looking for a chance to steal a little sweet from some careless colony, but every entrance was alive with alert guards, and no bee was allowed to pass in without being examined and smelt all over. The robbers did get a foothold in one weak colony, however, and before the apiarists saw it, it was besieged by a cloud of bees. They carried it by assault, too, after half an hour’s fighting, killed the defenders, tore down most of the combs, and carried every drop of the honey away to their own hive.
Then they turned their attention to the hive standing next in the row, but this was a powerful colony, and the raiders got more than they bargained for. In a moment the entrance was covered with knots of furiously-fighting bees. Every robber was pounced upon the moment it alighted. The attack was beaten off, and for a time quiet reigned in the yard.
Day by day the raspberry bloom vanished, and no fresh buds were opening now. The time came at last when it was entirely gone, and all the thickets were covered with fruit. The basswood trees were full of buds—but would they yield nectar?
It was the middle of July. In two weeks they must pay five hundred dollars, with interest, and they did not have the money. Unless they could make it, the bees would be taken from them.