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.
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| Yeah, it's a little hurty... |
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