If you missed it, watch it online at PBS.org.

Take yesterday, for example, when bees from the Ann Hive swarmed TWICE and yet due to a clipped queen, remain stuck in our backyard.

Alex tells the dramatic tale of exodus and return…

After being unable to convince their queen to swarm, the bees release a pheromone telling everyone to return home

The Kerry Hive has been owned.

After nearly a month of threatening to do so, our strongest hive swarmed today. With great huzzah, thousands of divas escaped the hive and took to the sky like buzzing parade day confetti.  They formed a cluster on a nearby tree and called thousands of their sisters to join the party.

And then they changed their mind.

Whether the queen refused to join them, or couldn’t because her wings were clipped, we’ll never know.

All we can say for certain is that everyone returned home for the night and that we’ll likely be on swarm patrol again tomorrow.

The Bee Apocalypse

July 24 about 10 a.m., we noticed a massive exodus from the hive. This wasn’t an exuberant swarm though; this was thousands of dying bees crawling from the hive like zombies.

When we approached the hive, there were already thousands dead near the entrance. When I pulled out the bottom board, piles of bees fell to the ground. Clearly, the carcasses had been blocking the bees inside from moving between the comb.

Those on the ground crawling were clearly in great pain as they twitched and hopped amid rocks and mulch. Hundreds twitched around me at any given point in a ten foot radius around the hive.

Inside the hive, bees clung tightly to the comb as though they couldn’t fly. And that was indeed the case for most bees. Any who made it out the front “door” to the landing board simply dropped off to the ground, twitching.

On this first day when 90% of the hive died, the bees were aggressive and confused. My father-in-law was stung in the ear simply walking nearby.The next day and those following made for a more docile hive. Perhaps those left could no longer move.

The Next Day, It Continues

Honeybee dead from unknown poisoning

The die-off continued for probably four days until only a few hundred bees remained. Inside the hive meanwhile, still born bees were hauled out of their cells and discarded by the workers. The tiny carcasses were white in their larval stage when disposed of by their sister bees.

A week later when we examined the hive, there was definitely no queen and the remaining bees seemed to have difficulty using their back legs. Any and all larvae were (intentionally?) still born and removed. The only bees coming and going seemed to be robber bees.

In the second week, we tried combining the remaining girls with a nucleus colony from a friend but had no luck. Whether the honey itself was poisoned or some other element of the original toxin remained, the curse was transferred to the new colony as well. In a week or so, the newly combined hive had contracted the same paralysis and the new queen stopped laying.

In this weakened state, every day became a battle between the bees and natural opportunists such as carpenter ants and wax moths. Quickly, wax moths gained the edge. We tried manual removal of the wax moth comb but without success.

The Disappearance

Eventually, the entire hive (or what was left of it) disappeared, leaving robber bees to clean house. That they did.

For a week, the hive was a frenzy of activity; the landing board stained with the foot traffic of thousands of careless bees coming and going in a house they feel no need to keep clean. They stripped the hive utterly bare. Honey, pollen, larvae — all were removed. Even propolis was worthy loot. We witnessed bees wrestling propolis off the sides of the hive interior.

In 3 weeks, my entire colony of 30,000 bees was decimated. It’s nearly winter now and nothing remains.

The hive sits empty but hopeful about housing a new colony next year.

The trailer includes footage from a Malaysian honey hunt described in Stephen Buchmann’s Letters from the Hive as well as interviews with beekeepers from all over the country.

To be honest, the trailer is so compelling that my sappy little Mama cortex is having a full-on emotional crisis.