Got up on the Wrong Side of the Hive...

Yesterday the weather report showed sunny skies and warm temperatures. Perfect beekeeping weather. However, shortly after I got out of bed today, it started to rain. WTF?! We've had rain nearly every day for the last few weeks, and I'm pretty damned sick of it. Not only is the humidity at what seems to be 8,000,000%, every time it rains, it washes all the nectar out of the flowers.

Dear Mother Nature: Knock it off already! What do you have against my sweet little bees anyway?

After running a few errands in the rain, and having to go back to my house at least twice for things I forgot (and I STILL forgot something), I headed down to see the girls, loaded for bear. Maybe watching a little bit of BeeTV would make me forget the royally pissy mood I was in. After all, it was early in the day and there was bound to be some pretty pollen coming in.

It wasn't raining at the hive, and indeed there was pretty pollen coming in, and lots of activity on the front porch. I set up my little step-stool and set up my notebook for the inspection. I make a diagram of all the boxes and frames so I can record what's on each one.

Because I work a lot slower when I'm not wearing gloves, I wore them today so hopefully I wouldn't aggravate the girls as much as I did last time. I even put on my pullover jacket for extra coverage, but I didn't put on the hat and veil. It's really hard for me to see through the veil, and what with me working a little faster, hopefully I wouldn't need it.

The smoker cooperated today and lit in only two matches! Yippee. Thank goodness for small favors. I put a little smoke in the entrance to let them know I was there. Ding-dong, Avon!  There were quite a few more bees in there this week.(and earwigs...eew) Clearly Maud is doing her job. Good girl. The first box went smoothly, and the girls were pretty calm. My co-worker (the lady who introduced me to my hostess) was visiting and she got to get a good look at the nice frame full of honey I pulled out.

The second box was also pretty calm, but I could hear them get a little louder when I moved their frames around. Lots of brood and food, and they're doing a good job filling out the empty frames.

The third box had been listening while I poked around up top and by the time I got down there, they wanted no part of me. I sprayed them down with sugar water to calm them down, but all that did was make them mad. Really mad. A couple girls came after me and got tangled in my hair. Their buzzing started to get louder and higher pitched, and sounded just like my mother's evil cat.  I tried shaking them out of my hair, but they were hell-bent on giving me hell. I got one out, but that second one... she got me right on the noggin.

Ow.

I tried to scratch out the stinger, but I have no idea if I got it. I reckon not, since the throbbing and burning lasted longer than usual.  I blew several puffs of smoke on my head to mask the "KILL" pheromone, but clearly, the gal who got me was chock-full-o-pheromone and another one came out and got me on the thigh.  Seriously?!

Then the fun started.  One by one, the girls came out and screamed at me and went for my hair. They chased me away and I grabbed the hairbrush to brush them out of my hair. This time, I put on the veil, and finished my inspection. I buttoned them back up and they seemed to calm down.

I took off the veil and jacket and went to check the bottom board. (A little board that slides out so I can inspect for mites, etc.) There was a bunch of nice pollen on it which is always really tasty. There was a guard bee making the rounds, and she came after me. All the pollen fell off the board as I was running away, trying to get the bee out of my hair. I had to run pretty far before she finally gave up and went home.

After a few minutes, I went back, and sat down on the stool again to watch them. They ignored me while they took care of business, so I was able to finish my notes. However, the business they were taking care of was clearly the discussion of how to get rid of me, because they took another  run at me.

FINE. I get it. It's time to go home now.  Clearly my bad mood rubbed off on them, so I left them there to stew while I went home and ate some ice cream and put some cortisone cream on my thigh.

And here... here's my very sexy leg after the Kamikaze Security Guard zapped me. Ugh. It feels like a hot, deep bruise, and the swelling is a good 5 inches across. The good news is my head isn't swollen like that. It's just a little sore.

Yeah, it's a little hurty...

Maybe I can find some [ahem] "medicinal herbs" to put in the smoker next time...that's sure to put me and the girls in a really good mood.

Pretty Little, Busy Little Bees

Just a few shots of my girls in action. I love it when I can catch them coming in for a landing, loaded with pollen.

Those are pollen baskets on their legs, filled with yummy yellow goodness.

Usually I'm there in the evenings, so I don't get to see a lot of pollen. By that time, the gals are coming back to roost and build wax for the night, but here, before noon on a sunny day, I see lots and lots of brood food coming in.

Coming in for a coordinated tandem landing.

They remind me of tiny little F-18s coming in for a landing on an aircraft carrier. They wobble side to side, hover a little, and then just drop right down. Maybe that's more like a Harrier.  I'll have to ask my dad.

Meanwhile, on BeeTV, one little undertaker bee is trying like hell to get the bottom half of a dead bee out the door. She pushes, pulls and goes around in circles, then she just says "f*** it!" and leaves it there. Nobody else seems to care it's there, so why should she?

Ok, that's enough for today. It's time for me to focus on the Stanley Cup Final game 6. I'm officially torn, but I heard myself cheering for the Hawks when they broke the tie in game 5.

Box on, box off...

The girls are chugging right along.

I went to visit them on Monday to add a new box to the hive so they'd have plenty of room to grow. I'm paranoid that they'll get too crowded and swarm when I'm not there to catch them. While I was there, I decided to do another semi-full inspection. I saw lots of eggs up in the top box, but only on about 3 of the 10 frames. Down in the middle box, it was the same deal... very few frames of eggs and brood relative to the number of frames, and there were many, many frames that were completely empty. No comb, no bees, no nothing. I wonder when they'll finally fill out those outer frames? They really need to do it because they're going to need to fill them with pollen and honey.  As it is, all the "nectar" they have is from the sugar water I was giving them. Yeah, ok, girls, no more sugar water for you. You're big enough now to go get real nectar from nature like you're supposed to.

I wasn't wearing any veil or gloves, so I was working pretty slowly to avoid agitating everybody. However, by the time I got down into the bottom box, they were pretty much done with me poking around in their house and they started to come after me. I got head butted a couple times and had to step away for a second. Heaven forbid I put on gloves... I was trying to get the frames back in the right spot, and they didn't like that either and one of them got me on the tip of the thumb. I scraped the stinger out with the hive tool and then blew some smoke over it to mask the "KILL THE INTRUDER, NOW!" pheromone they were giving off.   It didn't work. The initial sting isn't so bad, but then it's like eating a hot pepper...it builds up, and for about 20 seconds it pretty burn-y. Then another Kamikaze Ophelia raced out and got me in the knee. Was that really necessary? Little bit--... oh, wait, these are my sweet little bees I'm talking about.

The next night, at bee club, I explained my "skinny" brood and empty comb situation to a couple seasoned beeks. (one of which was my neighbor, to whom I haven't talked since the big drama night of their arrival.) They told me that as long as I keep adding boxes, they'll keep building up, and that I have to take that extra box off and make them fill out the rest of that foundation. They assured me they won't swarm any time soon, and that I really don't want to have a hive 10 boxes high with no honey in it. Ok, fine, I'll take off the box.

Wednesday evening, after my hair appointment, I ran down there to take care of it. Of course it was pouring rain the whole way, so much so that my AWD car was hydroplaning. Yeesh. The girls sure aren't going to like this.  Fortunately, it stopped by the time I got there, and everybody was in a good mood. I (suited up this time) took off the extra story, put the roof back on and sat back for a little Bee TV.

The workers were all coming back from the field, each one approaching at the same angle.  There was a bee on the front porch sounding the "we live here"  buzz so all the returnees could make instrument landings.

Now I REALLY have to let them bee for awhile.  If they were in my own backyard, I'd be sitting out there all the time, certainly to the detriment of my social life and laundry chores. It's hard to stay away from them for so long, so when I do see them, I want to open everything up and see what's going on. The bee teacher says this is normal for beginners. By next year we'll have enough faith in our girls to leave them alone.

Here's a little sample of the Real Housewives of Maud County...