Kirk Nelson walked outside a week ago to check on the honeybees he’d been tending for about six years, and got a stark surprise. One of the two colonies in his backyard in Orono had buzzed out of its hive — the queen, workers and drones alike — leaving nothing behind but honey. “We had been out in the hive two weeks before that and it looked like it was doing great, and all of a sudden they were just gone,” Nelson said. Nelson isn’t the only Minnesota beekeeper who’s missing their prized honey makers. He said he spoke with two others who had lost hives in the same way. And similar reports have come in to the University of Minnesota’s Bee Lab @umnbeelab, according to Marla Spivak, a professor in the department of entomology. Mites and a warm autumn might be the problem. Read more at the link in our bio. Reporting by Chloe Johnson. Photo by Kyndell Harkness/The Minnesota Star Tribune. #minnesota #bees #honeybees #environment