Though the last stretch of the Honey Lingers period was by no means disastrous, the damp way in which it fizzled was definitely a disappointment. Even subtracting the three various re-releases, Let It Bee produced five individual singles (Just A City, I Say Nothing, I Walk The Earth, Don't Call Me Baby, and Man In The Moon) in the U.K., whereas Honey Lingers only produced three (Monsters and Angels, I Think I Love You, and Perfect Place). "Adonis Blue" would have made a perfect Beehive single, as would "Look At Me," but by early 1992 London Records had apparently lost interest in promoting Honey Lingers.

Early 1992 also brought the first in a string of personal and professional calamities that would plague Voice Of The Beehive for the next several years. In March, Tracey's long-time relationship with That Petrol Emotion's Steve Mack came to an abrupt end and painful end. Perhaps it is fortunate that London Records lost interest in Honey Lingers at this time because Tracey more than likely would have been miserable having to promote pop records while dealing with such an anguishing personal problem. The only positive product that eventually came from this period was the song "Moon Of Dust," which Tracey wrote at the time to express her disappointment with how the relationship ended. A bright spot appeared in the spring of 1992 when the Beehive found out that they were in the running for the opening slot on Crowded House's upcoming British tour. As the leaders of Split Enz, Tim and Neil Finn had been early musical heroes to Tracey and Melissa, so the Beehive camp lobbied hard to secure the warm-up slot and eventually succeeded. Sadly, though, the Crowded House tour did not turn out to be the positive experience Tracey and Melissa had been hoping for. The time they were allotted as openers was painfully brief, especially given the fact that they'd been touring as headliners for at least five years by that point, and the restrictions they were given seemed a little harsh. For instance, the Beehive were not allowed to record any of their gigs from the soundboard for possible future b-sides. The response from Crowded House's fans was also tepid, at best. The silver lining to this excursion was that the band got along quite well with the Finn brothers and the rest of Crowded House. The late summer also brought another unexpected surprise: the complete resurgence of Woody's old band, Madness. In January of 1992, just as "Perfect Place" was limping its way up the British singles chart, Madness' classic song "It Must Be Love" was used in a British TV commercial. The song suddenly started getting heavy requests on British radio, so the song was re-released and made it as high as number 6 on the British charts. The surprise success of that single led to a Madness greatest hits album, which also charted well. The sudden resurgence of Madness as one of Britain's most beloved bands inspired the nutty boys to reunite for a special gig in August of 1992, which they called Madstock. As we all know now, Madstock turned into a huge event, spawning several other subsequent gigs (Madstock II, Madstock III, as well as full-scale tours), and Woody suddenly found himself torn between staying with the relatively inactive Beehive or rejoining the reinvigorated Madness full-time. By the early winter of 1992, he'd decided to go with Madness.

Just as he was leaving, though, Voice Of The Beehive was tapped to re-record the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" with Jimmy Somerville for a homeless charity called Putting Our House In Order. The theme of the project, apparently, was to pair unlikely recording artists together to see what they might come up with. Other than the Beehive and Jimmy Somerville, a few interesting pairings included Samantha Fox with Hawkwind and Tom Jones with New Model Army. Stepping in to fill Woody's shoes was a great drummer

named Tom Fenner (who stayed with the band for most of the next year), but Melissa proved to be irreplaceable. Although she appeared in the later video and all of the promotional projects for "Gimme Shelter," Melissa did not appear on the actual record. She was out of the country at the time of recording, so Tracey was left alone to belt the Stones' classic along with Jimmy Somerville. While the "Gimme Shelter" project was still being put together by Food Records and EMI, Tracey got down to the business of writing songs for the next Beehive album. By the end of the year, she had 30+ songs in the bag, but Polygram informed her that they "didn't hear a single." They encouraged her to try again and even suggested matching her up with XTC's Andy Partridge as a writing partner. While Polygram worked on setting that partnership up, Tracey took a holiday in Derry, Ireland, visiting with That Petrol Emotion and Undertones founder Sean (John) O'Neill and his family. It was a relaxing time for Tracey, something she desperately needed. In February of 1993, Andy Partridge agreed to work with Tracey on a few songs, and the project went quite well. Besides "Blue In Paradise," Tracey and Andy put together a few other songs, and mutually agreed to work together again sometime in the future. Sadly, that agreement would never come to pass. The chief majority of March and April was taken up with promotional work for the "Gimme Shelter" project. A video for the song was produced, and, together with Jimmy Somerville, the girls did a slew of television and print interviews. Unfortunately, the Food/EMI distribution plan for the record never really made any sense. Rather than release a full-length album, the twelve collaborations were parceled out between four genre-themed single releases. The first three (rock, alternative and dance) were released as CD-singles, but the Beehive's version was stuck on the pop release, which was only released as a cassette single. In March, the band appeared with Jimmy Somerville on Top Of The Pops (theirs was the only version chosen to represent the project on that seminal British music program), but it didn't seem to help. The "Gimme Shelter" single (I'm not sure which of the four releases was considered the "official" single) debuted at 23 on the British chart, then immediately dropped the next week and that was the end of it. Had it not been for the charity angle, the mishandling of the project's release would have been simply pathetic. But with the project having been designed to help those in need, it was heartbreakingly sad. Sometime later, Toshiba EMI in Japan released a 10-song compilation of the "Gimme Shelter" tracks on CD (the Beehive's track is included; I'm not sure which two versions were dropped), but that CD is near impossible to find. Its release must have been extremely brief. The rest of the spring and early summer saw Tracey continuing to write and Polygram continuing to stall. Frustrated by it all, Tracey left for America in July to be with an old friend, Marlon, who was bravely fighting AIDS. Tracey brought with her a gift for Marlon, a song she'd written for him called "Moonblind." She spent the next month and a half with him, and (somewhat poetically) he would pass away on December 31st. Also in July of 1993, Polygram had signed up Pete Vettesse to work with the Beehive on their next album. Although the projects he'd been involved with previously (Annie Lennox's Diva album, for instance) didn't sound much like Beehive material, Tracey and Melissa took to him quite well. It was also an encouraging sign that Polygram was moving ahead with assigning a producer, rather than balking about Tracey's songwriting. By the end of August, Tracey had returned to England and the initial production of Sex & Misery had begun. In the end of October, the Beehive took time out from recording to play a surprise gig in London. The response from the fans was encouraging, so the band re-entered the studio with a new vigor. Unfortunately, the record company situation was not getting any better. By January of 1994, things had gotten so bad that the band started negotiating a release from their contract. When the release was final, they gave themselves three months to find a new deal or pack it in. In March, the boys in the band decided they'd had enough. Sex & Misery was half done and it sounded nothing like the Beehive of old. Tracey and Melissa were on their own. As they continued to pursue a new record deal, they briefly flirted with the idea of going by a new name: "new name, new look, new everything." By May, they had signed with East/West Records, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers, and things were looking very good. The East/West team seemed extremely enthusiastic. They also encouraged the girls to stick with the Beehive brand name, if only for name recognition. With the ink on the new deal dry, the girls re-entered the studio with Pete Vettesse and set to work on finishing the much-delayed project.

In the fall of 1994, as they were finishing up the recording process on Sex & Misery, another personal tragedy befell the group. Like Tracey's (a year and a half before hers), Melissa's longtime relationship with her boyfriend broke up very bitterly. With so much personal devastation in their lives, the girls poured their pain into their work. By November, Sex & Misery was done.

Early 1995 found them back in England and gearing up for a big promotional push for Sex & Misery. East/West seemed extremely happy with the final results. In late April, the girls were sent to Paris to shoot the album cover art, then to Las Vegas to film the video for the first single, "Angel Come Down." The video was shot by Greg Masuak (who had directed a lot of their previous videos), and was set in Las Vegas' old neon graveyard. The resulting video was a haunting, dreamy affair, but it would almost never be seen. In May, East/West started complaining about the album's title, Sex & Misery, but it was the most appropriate name the girls could come up with. Given the personal battles they'd had to endure over the last couple of years, it seemed all too fitting, so they stuck to their guns and East/West backed down. In the late summer, "Angel Come Down" was released and promptly tanked, going no higher than 84 in the British charts. There are more than a few reasons why the single didn't do well. First and foremost, East/West didn't promote the record at all. There was little press, no reviews, and the video wasn't shown more than a few times. Beyond that, the song was a strange choice for lead-off single. Slow and melancholy, it wasn't your usual peppy summer single release. Something like "So Hard" might have done better, but it was already too late. East/West was so spooked by the first single's failure that they pulled Sex & Misery from its release slate. It was now uncertain when they would get around to dumping the album on the British market. For Tracey and Melissa, East/West's skittish move was the last straw. Seeing no reason to stay in England any longer, Tracey moved back to California in September, with Melissa following soon after. The remainder of 1995 was spent getting back to real life and re-establishing themselves in their old California world. In early 1996, East/West finally released Sex & Misery, as well as "Scary Kisses" as a CD-single. Both did abysmally on the charts. Other than a Best Of release from their London Records period (indeed, the best of album is basically the first two albums, minus three tracks), and a single release of "Heavenly" the following May, that was the end of Voice Of The Beehive in Britain. Back in the U.S., however, Discovery Records (formerly a jazz-only label, under the Warner Brothers umbrella) was branching out into pop/alternative market. They picked up several already finished projects that were languishing at other Warner Brothers subsidiaries, among them The Finn Brothers (Tim & Neil) and Voice Of The Beehive, and released them to the U.S. market. Sex & Misery was released in the late spring of 1996, as was a single for "Scary Kisses." To, perhaps, everyone's surprise, "Scary Kisses" caught on at a few prominent Top 40 radio stations, and the single became a modest hit, getting as high as 77 on the U.S. charts in early summer. Sadly, Discovery Records didn't know how to capitalize on the single's success. Rather than beat the press drum, or rush a "Scary Kisses" video into production, or put the girls on talk shows, or book a proper tour, Discovery Records hooked Tracey and Melissa up with a few journeymen musicians and sent them out for a few sporadic radio festival shows and (more humiliating than anything else) gigs in shopping mall parking lots in towns that had never heard of Voice Of The Beehive. It was a pathetic marketing effort and any momentum that had been built with "Scary Kisses" had been completely lost by late summer when they decided to release "So Hard" as a single (at least they made a video this time!). By late fall, with the bloom off Sex & Misery, Discovery Records informed Tracey and Melissa that they would not be renewing their contract. Voice Of The Beehive was officially finished. It was a sad end to a truly great band. So what happened after that? Well, Tracey and Melissa returned to being normal girls. They got jobs, new boyfriends, and a new place to live. Tracey's devoted to children and working towards an education degree. Melissa designs gorgeous fairy statues and sculptures, which you can find in a few gift shops in Laguna Beach and purchase at her website (Made In Heaven by Missy). Martin went on to form a new band called Dollshouse, for which he swapped bass for guitar, and now can be found working with the band I, Ludicrous. For a short time, Woody was in Dollshouse as well, but as with the Beehive he was forced to bow out when his Madness obligations got to be too much. Mike Jones ran Bang Bang Studios with Steve Mack for a time, then moved on to production/engineering work with a few bands. He also went the opposite route of Martin, swapping guitar for bass, and played for a while with a band called Truman. As for a reunion of the Beehive (the question I'm most asked by Beehive fans on the Internet), it finally happened in December 2003. Check out the gallery for pics, and follow this link to an incomplete tour diary Tracey kept for this website. In Summer 2009, when Tracey and Melissa were unable to participate in a proposed new tour due to family obligations back at home, Mike and Martin created a new Beehive "tribute" band with new singers. This new venture was not sanctioned by the girls, and, sadly, forced a painful wedge between the two camps. Hopefully, they will find their way back to one another and work things out, but until then, we fans still have some great music to remember.

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