Let's see... I slept in until 6:45 this morning and while brushing my teeth I took at glance out at the hives. The entire bottom deep of hive 1 was covered with bees. So I think to myself, hmm....it's been raining all night, it's really warm and muggy out, the bees are never awake right now and I just added 5 frames of bees to a full hive and took a medium off as I was instructed. Me thinks these ladies are either cooling their keesters outside or they really don't like the neighborhood we live in and are about to head back to Winchester. Soooo, I don a full bee suit, grab a bottle of HBH spray, a hive top feeder and off I go a calling.
Sure enough, all the bees on the outside are Buckfast–not an Italian to be seen. Naturally, I left my smoker open next to the hives and it is soaked. I really sucked as a Boy Scout and used to leave my dad's rusty ol' tools wherever I last used them (I wonder if that's why they looked rusty and old) but now pride myself on usually not doing such a stupid thing. Without the benefit f smoke, I take off the telescoping cover and inner cover. The bees are fairly cool about it, tho' I've never seen more bees between the 2 covers before. I replace the medium I was told to take off when I installed the nuc and throw a feeder on top. I balance the inner cover against the front landing of the hive and an empty deep I keep nearby to put boxes on when working the hives and remove the mouse guard to open up the entrance so the "March of the Bees" can proceed unhindered (pic 1 shows final result). Just for good measure, I sprayed the Buckfast with HBH to make them happier.
As hoped, the 1500+ bees on the inner cover start marching right back into the hive. Even the Buckfast join the parade tho' there are a few skirmishes.
I'll go out and pick up the mess later. Trouble is, I KNEW I should have left that medium on the hive. Time to start believing in myself more. The life of an inexperienced beekeeper...
Now where's my morning coffee?
No comments:
Post a Comment