Back then, toward the end of the summer in the year we first opened BeeCamp in O-shiro, hornets suddenly descended on us in huge numbers for some reason.
The Western honeybees faced them almost like knights in single combat—and one by one, they were taken down.
I also remember there being surprisingly few flowers around us.
They were in a situation where even finding enough to eat was a struggle, while at the same time having to fight off those monster-like hornets. It must have been incredibly stressful for them.
And then, on top of all that, there were us.
We came stumbling in, with very little idea what we were doing, constantly opening the hives because we were so eager to see the queen.
Maybe that was their way of saying,
“Hey, old man! What the hell are you doing?!”
Since then, we’ve learned a lot.
We improved the roofs over the hives to help protect the bees from the summer heat, and upgraded the netting we use to keep hornets out.
We also started making sure the guard bees didn’t have to go out and engage in those deadly duels, checking the weight of the hives regularly, and paying much closer attention to whether the colonies had enough food.
And after all that, they seem to complain a little less.