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    After I powdered the bees, Tyrone lifted the empty hive body on top of the loaded hive box. Got that? We just switched hive boxes. Put the bee heavy top body on the bottom and the empty hive body on top.
    I then put pollen patties on the top frames and shut the hive by replacing the inner and outer covers.
    More beekeepers lose bees from starvation in the spring than from any other cause, which is why I put pollen patties in the hive for the bees to eat.
    Grabbing some duct tape out of my kit, I wrapped it around the seams of the two hive bodies so predators couldn’t get to the food we had just placed inside.
    The bees would now have the calories they needed to hunt for nectar and fresh pollen while raising new baby bees.
    I needed at least 100,000 bees in each hive to get a good harvest.
    Bees usually make around 400 to 500 pounds of honey per year, but they eat most of it. And I left 100 pounds of honey in the hives to get them through winter. That gave me about 50 pounds of honey to harvest.
    Satisfied that the hive was healthy and the Queen was active, I went on to the next hive. We repeated the same steps with each hive until I came to one that smelled like moldy yeast.
    “Do you think it’s American Foulbrood?” asked Tyrone.
    Foulbrood was the hoof-and-mouth disease of the bee world. Usually the hive had to be destroyed before it infected the other hives.
    I took a toothpick and picked at one of the brood cells. “No, it’s not ropy. The hive sure smells funny though.” I sniffed again. “I think some of the honey is last year’s aster honey. Let’s just treat them like normal. Perhaps the extra energy from the pollen patties will help them clean out their hive and get them on a normal path. We’ll check again in a few days and see if the smelly honey is gone. If not, then we’ll go from there.”
    “How do you like being free?” asked Tyrone, changing the topic. “We’re out here working the bees. You haven’t jumped once. Not looking over your shoulder. You don’t have to worry about O’nan anymore.”
    I smiled bitterly. “At times I feel nothing but sorrow over the past events and other times I feel like doing a jig ’cause that mother is dead. You know, the usual conflicting emotions anyone would have . . . regret, relief and rhapsody.” I shrugged my shoulders. “How do you feel? It affected you too.”
    “I just would have shot him. Bang. Just like that. You’re dead.”
    “Well, that’s what finally happened. Someone got fed up with his threats and shot O’nan.”
    “Was it you? Come on. You can tell me. You’re part of my posse. I won’t tell.”
    “Tyrone, you’re the max,” I replied, looking at his innocent face. “You know I didn’t do it.”
    Tyrone sidled up to me. “Was it Asa? Did you have Asa ice him for you?”
    “She was out of the country when it happened. She has witnesses.”
    Looking at Tyrone’s crestfallen demeanor, I chuckled, “I always thought you were the one who did the evil deed.”
    The young man returned a beaming smile. “I thought about it. Dreamed about it. Me and my posse . . .”
    “That being your brother and cousins?”
    “We talked about it, but Grandpa said no. He threatened to disinherit us so we stopped . . . well, at least where he could hear.”
    “And he was so right,” I laughed, wishing I was so enthusiastic about something again. Why is youth wasted on the young?
    “Who do you suspect?”
    “I haven’t the faintest, but you know what? I just don’t give a damn. I’m glad that someone finally had the guts to put that rabid dog down. Too many have suffered due to him.”
    “Think that you’re ever gonna find out?” asked Tyrone, putting bee equipment into my old golf cart.
    I shook my head. “I hope not, dear boy. I hope not.”
    “My Grandma says secrets never stay hidden in Kentucky . . . that either the water or the dirt just spits secrets back up to God.”
    I shivered at his