February tested his patience more severely than January had. A false thaw brought several warm afternoons, and Caleb saw bees making cleansing flights outside the hives. Then a deep freeze returned and stayed long enough for him to worry about stores, moisture and the shrinking size of winter clusters. He consulted Walt before making any management changes, checked what could safely be checked under the conditions and avoided opening colonies simply to reassure himself. Each night he reread June's records and reminded himself that winter was not a contest of who could worry most effectively.
One evening his sister Ellie sat beside him as he looked at a page of calculations. She asked why he had spent months making something so complicated out of insects that used to live without his help. Caleb started to answer with a list of parasites, lost habitat, diseases and weather, then stopped because she was eleven and had asked a simpler question. He told her that bees could survive without him in many places, but that the colonies he had accepted responsibility for needed attentive care, especially in a changed environment.
"Do they make you happy?" Ellie asked.
He looked at the numbers. "Yes."
"You don't look happy."
"I'm worried about them."
She considered that. "Mom worries about you when you ride your bike down the big hill. That doesn't mean she wishes you weren't here."
The answer was so unexpected that Caleb laughed. Ellie looked pleased, then asked whether he would finally buy her honeycomb candy with the money from his next harvest. Caleb promised to consider it, which she correctly interpreted as a no. After she went upstairs, he stared at his notebook for a moment and realized that he had spent the entire winter treating love for the project as a reason to be frightened. It was possible, he thought, to care deeply about a thing and still allow moments of uncomplicated pleasure in its existence.
The first warm stretch of March arrived after a week of rain. The fields were muddy, the creek ran high and the apple trees showed the earliest signs of waking. Caleb moved through his farm chores with an impatience he tried not to show. At last a suitable afternoon came when Walt agreed they could begin careful spring assessments of the colonies.
Caleb opened the first hive with hands steadier than he felt. Inside, a smaller but living cluster moved across the frames. He found the queen and signs of fresh laying, a modest circle of new brood at the center of the colony's winter home. For a moment he couldn't speak. He had spent months imagining that he might lift the cover and find nothing but silent comb.
Walt looked over his shoulder. "Record what you see," he said softly.