It's been an interesting few days... we had my mom up last weekend. After taking care of the usual weekend chores, which included a tumultuous relationship between Nicole and the weed wacker (think "I love you... you're perfect, now stop shooting all those pebbles in my eyes and on my shins"), we hit the road checking out the Hull-O Farm and a local flea market, where we bought a pretty rad see-saw top for $40, complete with scary 1950's clown faces painted on the seats.
We decided to save the hive opening for Sunday afternoon, and after making a few batches of sugar syrup we headed up to the hives. I was covered head to toe, nicole wore yoga pants and a t shirt, while my mom settled on a sundress, flip-flops, and beekeepers veil. Awesome!
We decided to use Dick Johnson's advice of using a sugar syrup spray to calm the bees instead of the smoker... this would prove disasterous. Nicole was my wing man, so to speak, and her duty was to spray the bees with sugar syrup to calm them so that I could inspect the frames. Well, the bees weren't calmed by the spray... worse yet, when Nicole saw that there was a fair amount of drowned bees in the top feeder she got upset. That (and the fact that my mom was snapping pictures) made me stressed and even though I told Nicole it's part of beekeeping, the tears were already flowing. Chaos was brewing!
On the first frame I noticed what appeared to be a supercedure cell- a cell in which the worker bees are grooming a new queen because they are unhappy with her egg production, which would inevitably end with some sort of queen on queen showdown. Now I'm freaking out! Nicole's crying, my mom (in her sundress and veil) is snapping pics, and I'm witnessing a bee revolt in the making. It felt like it was a hundred degrees out, and as the first drops of sweat drip from my face NICOLE GETS STUNG! Screaming, she goes running into the woods, my mom is following behind her and I am left alone to finish the inspection. It was all kind of a blur.
As we made our way home I felt kind of bad about the bees that had drowned in the syrup and wondered if this whole beekeeping thing was a really bad idea. Quickly I realized that I was in too deep, and there was no turning back now. I had to regroup.
After doing some research and an informative talk with DIck Johnson, I headed up again today to check on the bees (and water the garden in 95 degree heat). As I approached the hives I noticed dozens of bees standing at the hive entrance, feverously flapping there wings in order to circulate air through the hive to cool it down from the heat. It was pretty impressive. I started by re-reading how to use the smoker to calm the bees during the inspection, and it worked like a charm. The bees were calm and the inspection went very well. I was able to clean out the top feeders of all the drowned bees, and replenish them with fresh syrup. I determined that Hive A is ready for a second deep to be put on, as our Queen Bee-atrice has been hard at work filling frames with eggs. It turns out that what I believed to be a supercedure cell is likely just a drone cell (a new male bee), which is totally normal. As I finished up at the hives and was preparing to exit, I saw in the corner of my eye a bee that had made it's way under my veil. I shook my head and tried to open the bottom of the veil, but that just enraged her, so she stung me on the cheek. I ran into the house and pulled out the stinger in the bathroom mirror leaving it on the sink for Nicole to see this Friday.
By the way, the garden is doing great and a new couple has moved into one of our bird houses.
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