Betsy Beekeeper's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

The next morning Betsy returned to the hives with empty jars and found the ground soft beneath her boots. The grass around the relocated boxes sagged lower than it had the day before. She knelt and pressed her palm to the earth. It gave under her hand, spongy and wrong. She walked back across the field to where the mound sat crowned with pink flowers. The structure had changed overnight. What had been a solid dome now showed cracks running down its sides, the opening at its center wider and deeper than before. The pink flowers tilted inward, their stems leaning toward the dark hollow. Betsy circled the mound and saw the pattern — earth pulling down and in, tunnels collapsing, the whole structure beginning to fold into itself. The ants had abandoned it or died trying to hold it together. Either way, the flowers were sinking with it. She spent the afternoon building a platform from scrap lumber and concrete blocks, positioning it between the mound and the hives. The brick shed that stored her smokers and spare frames became her watching post. She dragged a chair inside and propped the door open so she could see both the mound and the wooden boxes pressed together at the field's edge. If the ground gave way beneath the hives, she'd have minutes at most to move them. She counted the boxes — eight hives producing extraordinary honey from flowers that were vanishing into the earth. There was nothing to stabilize the mound with, no way to stop dirt from being dirt. She could only watch it fail and be ready. By evening the mound had sunk another two inches. The pink flowers bent at sharper angles, some already touching the ground. Betsy pulled a frame from the nearest hive and found the cells still heavy with pink pollen, the bees still working. The honey inside would be extraordinary for as long as the flowers lasted. She sealed the hive and walked back to the shed. The platform wouldn't save the mound, but it might buy her enough time to move the boxes before the ground took them. She sat in the chair and watched the flowers tilt further toward the dark. The bees kept flying.