Dylan leaned against a post and grinned. "What happens when you get stung a hundred times and decide you hate bees?"
"I hope I decide sooner than a hundred."
That made Dylan laugh, but his interest persisted. He came by the following weekend to help carry usable boxes onto the new stands, and he was surprised to see how much care Caleb had put into their placement. The stands were raised from wet ground, spaced to allow safe working room, and oriented so the bees could fly out without crossing the yard where Ellie played. Caleb had checked where water collected after heavy rain and watched how afternoon sun reached the area before deciding on the final arrangement.
"You make anything look like a science project," Dylan said.
"There's a reason hives go where they go," Caleb answered. "If the ground stays damp, the wood rots. If we block the flight path, somebody gets stung. If I don't leave room to work, I'll be the somebody."
"You were this serious when you built that birdhouse in fifth grade," Dylan reminded him. "Three weeks measuring a box that a sparrow never used."
"The house sparrows used it."
"Your father took it down because they fought over it every morning."
Caleb conceded the point and handed him another board. Dylan stayed until the sun dropped behind Miller's Ridge, and on the way home he asked whether he could come back when the bees arrived. Caleb told him yes, provided he wore a veil and followed Walt's instructions without turning the whole thing into a joke.
The first lesson that truly hurt came before the three purchased nucleus colonies were even settled. A neighboring beekeeper had a small queenless colony he thought Caleb could practice evaluating with Walt's help, and the boy obtained a young replacement queen for it. He understood from his reading that colonies needed time to accept a new queen, but he was impatient and mistook the workers' curious gathering around the introduction cage for welcome. He released the queen too soon, convinced that giving her freedom would speed up the process.
By the next inspection the queen was dead. Caleb found the evidence of his mistake, looked at the workers moving across the comb and felt a hollowness he had not anticipated. This was not a cracked board or a wasted purchase that could be repaired with a nail. A living animal had died because he had acted before he knew enough to act well.
He drove to Walt's house in the late afternoon and told him exactly what he had done, leaving out nothing that made him look careless. Walt listened without interrupting. When Caleb finished, the old man asked why he'd ignored the plan they had discussed.
"I thought I could save time," Caleb admitted.
"Did you?"
"No, sir."
"Bees don't care how excited you are. They're not waiting to reward you for wanting a thing badly enough. You make sure a colony is genuinely queenless, introduce a queen with the appropriate protection, and give the workers time to accept her scent. You observe what they're doing instead of deciding you know. Every colony's different, but rushing isn't a substitute for understanding."