By the end of that month he would have reasons to remember his own lesson about listening before answering. One of the first colonies he had established, a box made from the sound Reyes equipment, was beginning to behave in a way he could not explain by heat alone. For a while he would wish the problems of July had returned, because heat at least had been something he could feel on his own skin. The new trouble was quieter, concealed beneath wax cappings and the apparently ordinary activity of bees moving across a frame.
The change began with fewer foragers at the entrance of the Reyes hive. Caleb noticed it on a Tuesday morning while walking past with a bucket of feed for the cattle, then came back after his chores to watch without opening the box. Other colonies had bees returning in steady streams, some carrying pollen from the late summer flowers. The Reyes colony was quieter. Workers left in small, uncertain groups, and the few returning foragers he could see seemed to be bringing home less than their neighbors.
He made a note and compared it with the previous two inspections. Three weeks earlier the colony had been growing well, with a regular brood pattern and adequate stores. The following week he had noticed fewer new eggs, but he had been distracted by the heat wave and had written POSSIBLE BREAK IN LAYING without investigating further. The memory of his early queen mistake returned with a force that made him ashamed. He wondered whether he had once again decided an observation was harmless because he preferred a harmless explanation.
When conditions allowed a careful inspection, the answer became more troubling. The brood pattern was scattered across the comb rather than concentrated in the solid area he expected from a productive queen. Some capped cells were sunken or irregular, and there were fewer young larvae than there should have been. Caleb felt his stomach tighten beneath the protective suit. He had read enough to know that several different conditions could produce worrying appearances, including problems too serious to guess at from a distance.
He did not move frames into another colony or reuse equipment from the troubled hive. Instead he marked it for isolation from his ordinary management tasks and contacted Walt, describing what he had actually seen rather than announcing a diagnosis. Walt asked several questions about odor, larval appearance, the age of the queen, food stores and the progression of the symptoms. Then he told Caleb to leave the colony undisturbed until they could assess it together with appropriate precautions.
That afternoon Caleb drove to Walt's place with photographs and his notes. He did not carry a suspect frame openly through the valley; Walt had warned him not to move potentially contaminated brood equipment without a good reason. The older man studied the pictures beneath a desk lamp and looked toward the window before speaking. He knew Caleb wanted reassurance, and he refused to give reassurance before evidence justified it.