Summary

In “Colony Collapse,” Jake and Alice enjoyed eating dinner every night together, and sometimes Noah and Celia joined them. Jake found he preferred the sounds of nature over his ska-punk music, maybe he had just “been blocking out the sound of his parents” (185). “His chest filled with pride each time he managed to locate [a queen bee],” but found that several hives were missing her distinctive G-sharp sound (186). To his horror, when he opened those boxes, he found dead queens. He reluctantly told Alice when she returned home, who declared the event “queen failure” caused by pesticide “drift” from her neighbor’s orchard (189,191). Jake realized that the feeling he felt of being “a hollowed-out tree filled with a honeybee colony” was love (190).

In “Glory Bee,” the sheriff’s deputy, Ronnie, dropped Harry off at his first day of work at Alice’s.Ronnie...