Fall Respite

High 60s, not humid, bright and sunny, with just a slight breeze.

After a week of cold, rainy days that didn't get out of the 40s, the weather finally broke! This gave me another chance to get a little more sugar syrup in the hives. A bit more food couldn't hurt to help make it through the winter. There are still a few flowers blooming; the most abundant being a small white flower. As the bees are coming and going I could still see they are bringing in pollen, but not nearly as much as a few weeks ago. I didn't want to do much to them again since it has been so cold and wet lately, so I just popped off the telescoping cover, refilled the baggie with sugar syrup and closed it up. I don't like to use smoke if I don't feel I need to and since it was such a quick visit I didn't bother with smoke or even gloves.

Here are a couple of images from a few weeks ago. The first is one of the queens. She is right in the middle of the frame below with the spot of paint on her. Notice how much bigger she is than the worker bees around her.


And here is a closeup of one of my girls.

Courtesy Levin Images

Fall feeding

75 degrees, not humid, bright and sunny. A beautiful day with a little breeze, but not bad. Visual inspection showed no sign of disease or mites.

My wife's family all came out to the mountain Sunday October 4th. We had a cookout, played some games (check out hillbilly golf, aka ladder golf), and I did a top to bottom hive check on both hives. Michele was in with me and our 7 year old nephew helped with Hive 1. I took off the outer cover, pulled off the shim and the Ziploc feed bag, and inspected several frames. The top hive body was pretty much full of honey with a bit of brood. The outside frames were less filled, especially on the outside of the frames. The second hive body had quite a bit of honey. The top corners of the frames were filled with more honey in the center frames than the outside frames. There was still quite a bit of brood activity going on in this body. The bottom hive body was packed with pollen! Holy cow there was a lot of pollen in there. There was a little honey here an there and a small amount of brood. It looks like the queen is making a big circle in the middle of the hive concentrating on the middle hive body but eventually going up and down into the other 2. I am a little concerned about the amount of stored honey, but not at all with the pollen stores. And, watching them come and go they are still packing in the pollen. It has been really dry here the last month so maybe this year is a better pollen than nectar year. Anyway, I will feed them through October to try and build some honey stores. I brought 2:1 (sugar:water) syrup with me. 2:1 is supposed to spur them into storing it, 1:1 we use in the spring to spur brood production. So when everything is put back together I checked the Ziploc bag for leaks, filled it and put the top back on. As I was going along I checked the comb for signs of disease. None was found. I also check a bunch of bees as I go and saw no mites or obvious diseased bees. My nephew was very helpful and this time held a frame to see it really up close.

2 nieces (10 and 12) also wanted to get in on the act so we let them suite up for Hive 2. The 10 year old was a little cautious about getting in very close. The other was pretty much ready to jump in. We did the same procedure on Hive 2 and again I saw no mites or sign of disease on either the bees or comb. It is interesting that Hive 2 at the beginning had more dead bees in the package and always seemed to be just a little behind Hive 1. It was about a half frame behind being drawn out. The activity has always been a bit less. It got harder and harder to see as the summer went on and now I think Hive 2 is actually a little stronger with a little more stored honey. I don't think it is enough to make a difference but it is interesting to see how it has changed over the summer. Maybe because I always start on Hive 1 and make my mistakes there (like not noticing the Ziploc was leaking)? I started this way for two reasons: Hive 1 is uphill and it seemed more natural to work top to bottom but more importantly at the beginning Hive 1 seemed a little stronger so I figured when I did that one first they would be getting reorganized as I worked Hive 2 so they would be less likely to rob. After all we know the Italian bees are known for their tendency to rob.

All in all I am a little concerned that there will be enough stores for the winter so I will feed through October, as long as it stays warm enough.

Courtesy Levin Images

Here is the Ziploc bag feeding method I explained earlier. The lines on the bag are where the bees put propolis on between the bag and frame. You can also see the shim on top of the 3 hive bodies that keeps the bag from being squished.

Explanation and pics

Ok, so maybe I didn't explain a couple things well in my earlier post since I was trying to get so much backlog done at once. Ziplocs - There are several different methods to feed bees when they need help. There are outside feeders that sit on or near the entrance to the hive. There are top feeders that sit between one of the hive bodies and the top cover. And there is the cheap way we learned in class that works pretty well. The biggest problem I have run into with this method is that with the 8 frame equipment that I am using it is hard to fit 2 - gallon sized bags and still have ventilation space. In this method you take a gallon sized Ziploc bag, put a half gallon of sugar syrup in it, cut a small slit at the top, and lay it in the hive across the frames. One thing you need to be careful of is to not squish all the syrup out. Use a shim or put an extra hive body on top. This unfortunately is a big open space that if you read the early post you may remember anything bigger than 3/8 of an inch the bees want to build comb. That is how the extra comb I had to scrape off came about. My first year experience has shown that given a hive body they will definitely build comb. With my 3 inch shim they didn't. Maybe it was too late in the summer to want to build more there or maybe it is just a smaller space so they didn't have quite as much interest in building comb there. I don't know. The second thing to be careful of is that the bees will propolize the bag to the top bars. When you pull it off to refill, make sure and put a little syrup in and check for leaks before filling it and putting it back in the hive. I found this out the hard way when I put it in, closed the hive and then heard the syrup running out the front.


Above is a picture of several of the things I had mentioned earlier. This is a page of one of the books my wife puts together. There is an arrow pointing to an egg, so it is easier to see in this picture than the one posted earlier. Notice the honey is capped with nice white wax while the brood cappings tend to be darker with pollen and other impurities mixed in. Also, it is amazing how many different colors of pollen they find. Who would have thought?

Should have started when I got my bees!

The long anticipated Hive Talking blog is up and running! This will chronicle my adventures in my newest hobby, beekeeping. We have all heard of the plight of the honeybee; the number of pests and diseases that affect it continue to climb, colony collapse disorder (CCD) is wiping out large numbers of honeybee colonies, and urban sprawl and devastating droughts in parts of the country are killing off flowers on which the bees depend.

Last summer, 2008, I ordered a book on beekeeping from Amazon and it seemed like it could be an interesting hobby. My wife and I have 50 acres in the beautiful Virginia Mountains with plenty of trees and wildflowers that seemed like it would be a nice home for honeybees. We also have a lot of black bears so we will see how this works out! So I signed up for a beekeeping class and this blog will be a running history of my beekeeping experience.

We made it through installation and summer. Now comes the hard part – winter survival. But I am getting ahead of myself. Since I didn’t get around to starting this blog when I actually got my bees, or even better, during the class, this first post is basically the last 5 months in review. Check out the pictures. I will add new ones as a get around to it.

Thanks to my local beekeepers association for the classes and on-going help. Thanks to my mentor, Pat, and my buddy Tom whom I have become re-acquainted with since we worked together 20 years ago, for all the information and help with my panicked email and phone calls. (Are they supposed to be doing this!!) And especially thank you to my lovely wife Michele who has not only put up with my “science experiments” over the years but actually got into the hives with me and taken several stings for the cause. Most of the pictures you will see on this site will have been taken by Michele. The rest were taken by Alan Levin www.LevinImages.com. He has a wonderful eye and does all kinds of photography. Take a look at his site. My wife does some work with him to make beautiful keepsake books.

Finally, buy local honey! If not local at least buy American honey! It is said one third of all food we eat is pollinated by honeybees. With all the problems bees are facing these days it is getting harder and harder for honey producers to remain in business. If they go out of business the bees are gone. If the bees are gone American agriculture is gone. So please use more honey and consider its source. And if you think you might have an interest, check out your local beekeeper association.

So, on with a few close up shots of my girls and the year in review...


Check out the pollen!


Side shot


Coming in for a landing

September 6, 2009 - Can I have a bit of honey? I guess not.

80 degrees, sunny to partly cloudy, not much wind

Visual inspection yielded no signs of disease or mites.

This trip wasn’t as much of a check as it was to try and steal a little fall honey. The hives are doing so well I decided to try to sneak out some honey. I have a few shallow frames to use for mite control. If you use shallow frames and put them along the outside of the hive the bees will tend to make drone cells between the bottom of the frame and the set of top bars below. Then you can just scrape off the drone cells, drone larva attract more mites, and so reduce the mite population in the hive. Anyway, I put a couple of these together and trimmed medium foundation to put in them and was going to stick one in each hive to see if the bees will build wax and store honey in them. I am only trying this because there are already 11+ frames of honey in each hive. The things working against me are 1) it has been very dry recently and some of the golden rod is doing a very short bloom cycle, 2) it is going to be off and on rain all week, 3) I need to get the fumagilin in before it starts getting cold. So they have a week, maybe two, to build out the frame and make honey. Hopefully it is an empty place they won’t like and so will try to fill it quickly.

That was the plan. I got out there and my brother-in-law and nephew were there camping. I asked the nephew (age 7) if he wanted to get into the hive with me and he kinda surprised me by saying yes. So he went off to get on long pants and long shirt sleeves. We made it over to the hives and lit the smoker, more so he could see it then to actually use it, although I did put a puff across the top when I opened it so he could see the effect on the bees.

Hive 1 - The Ziploc bag was empty. I pulled a frame but I guess I forgot to rotate them because there was brood in it. D’OH! So I put it back together and didn’t mess with it any more. Otherwise I would have had to rotate boxes to get to the honey frames and I didn’t want to disturb them that much this trip.

Hive 2 – This one was stacked correctly so I pulled the outside frame. It was partially uncapped so I put it back and took the next one out. It was fully capped and filled all but a handful of cells. So I swapped in my shallow frame and took this one home. It is in the freezer right now. 3 days will kill any wax moth larva. Even though I expect to only have this frame out of the hive for a week or two at the most I don’t want it to be destroyed since it is winter food.

My nephew thought it was pretty cool to see all the bees up close. And the thought the smoker was really cool, until he touched it. I found out later he has never been stung by a bee, wasp, or yellow jacket so he didn’t really know what I was saying when I was talking to him about staying calm if he got stung. He says he will do it again so we will see if he continues after he eventually gets stung.

August 25, 2009 - Is it ok?

80+ degrees, up to 90, bright, sunny, not so humid

No mites or signs of disease in either hive.

I was concerned because at the Fall and Winter Refresher Class last night I talked to Pat about having to rotate the boxes and how the bottom one was basically empty. Also realized that I rotated them incorrectly. Honey always goes on top! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

So I got out there and got everything together. Hive 1 – checked 3 frames in the top box, outside to inside. Pulled the first one, the outside was empty, the inside was full of honey. Pulled the next frame and it was spotty brood on one side and pretty good coverage on the other. Pulled the third frame and it had real nice brood pattern. Could see the next one also had good brood pattern, at least on that side.

The second box was the honey box. It was totally full. The bottom box was about the same as the top with some honey and decent brood. All three boxes had a good number of bees.

I put this one back on the bottom, what was the top on next and the honey on the top. MegaBee patty was put between the top and second. MegaBee is a pollen substitute that has other ingredients to promote bee growth and extend their lifespan. I refilled the Ziploc bag and put it on top. I took off the inner cover so that the sugar water didn’t get crushed. This hive didn’t have much of the pollen patty gone and both top and bottom paper was still there.

Didn’t see the queen, but saw larva.

Hive 2 as basically the same, maybe a little less brood but a lot of honey. This hive had more of the pollen patty gone. The top paper was totally removed. Saw the queen in this hive. It is the unmarked queen.

August 15, 2009

88 degrees, bright sunny, humid

No mites or other pests. No signs of disease. I did a quick inspection to see what was going on after the hive body reversal last inspection.

Hive 1 – There was a good deal of activity in the top body. I used a little smoke at the front entrance and a couple puffs over the top of the body. I pulled a couple of frames one near the middle and one closer to the edge. The middle one was starting to get quite a bit of honey in it, some capped already. There was also a bit of larva in it. The frames were quite hard to get out. The bees had propolized them in pretty good. The top body was really heavy and full of honey.

Hive 2 – Started out the same. A lot of activity, I used a little smoke. This hive there wasn’t nearly as much honey, only a little bit. There was some larva but not a lot. – (Hindsight from 8/25) probably should have dug deeper to see what was going on to make sure all was well since this hive wasn’t doing the same as Hive 1. The honey box was pretty full.

Both hives I put in some MegaBee and half gallon 1:1 sugar water to see if they will take it.

August 1, 2009 - Uh oh, Wax moths

85 degrees, lower humidity, bright and sunny

No mites, 1 wax moth larva in Hive 2

I had seen a wax moth larva the week before and called my mentor, Pat, to see what to do. She recommended looking at each body and checking a couple of frames. For this inspection I fired up the smoker since I was going to be looking at each box. I started on Hive 1. I smoked the entrance a couple of times and then took off the outer cover and inner cover. There were plenty of bees. I smoked a couple times across the top box to drive the bees down so I could pull frames more easily. I pulled a couple of frames. This box was totally full of honey, about 1/3 capped.

The second box had some honey, some pollen, some empty cells and several larva. This was the same on both frames that I checked. After another couple puffs of smoke (had to relight the smoker because I ran out of pine needles) I went to the third box. This box was almost empty with very few bees. Looks like it is time for the switcheroo, so I put the box with larva on first, then the box with honey, and then the empty box on top. Reversing these should have the bees start using the empty box again, hopefully they will fill it with honey from the fall nectar flow so there will be enough honey going into winter.

This year has been a good nectar flow in my area so I haven’t had to do any supplemental feeding since the bees were installed. But it is coming to the time to do a test and see if they will take some sugar water. They need to have that second box full for winter.

Off to the second hive. This turned out to be basically the same story and I did the same thing.

June 28, 2009 - What's up?

Hmm, interesting. The 3rd hive bodies I put on don’t seem to have any action going on in them. There are still plenty of flowers and the clover is still blooming so the nectar flow hasn’t dried up but I don’t get why they aren’t doing much on these frames. Neither hive. There is plenty of activity going on and there seems to be a good amount of larva in body 2 and a bunch of honey and pollen in both. Maybe I need to shuffle a few frames up to the 3rd body to try and draw them up? I guess I will give it another week and see what happens.

I made the decision this week to go with the queens I have and see how they work out this winter. The packages I received were not local to this area and their is some local lore that the queens do not make it through the winter well. If this is true they can be replaced with a local queen that will hopefully have better winter survival. If I get more packages from the same place I should know if they are going to live through the winter or not. I will just need to watch them in the late winter and make sure there are enough bees going or I will have to get a queenless package to bulk them up some. Have to see how it goes.

June 21, 2009 - Final brood box goes on

Second hive body in both hives are already almost totally drawn out. Put the 3rd hive body on. I was probably a little late getting this 3rd body on since all the frames were almost totally drawn, but since I only get so many chances to look in on them it couldn’t be helped.

June 14, 2009 - Save the bees!

My first bee rescue. I will tell you about it in another entry.

May 24, 2009 - Fending for themselves!


Hive 1 - Oops spilled some sugar syrup.

Unfortunately Saturday Michele threw her back out so instead of a nice, calm day at the mountain on Sunday it turned into a quick trip just for me to check the bees. They are doing well. Hive 1 is still a bit stronger than the other. Yesterday was mostly to put on a second hive body because at last check around 5 frames were pretty well drawn with comb. Since it was nice and warm (about 85) I could have the hives open for awhile so I also checked the queen, checked a few other frames for larva and capped comb, which would be pupa. I also scanned for mites, but didn’t see any (hurray!). Both hives had again made comb up in the shim. They had not used up all the sugar water and there was dark honey in the comb, meaning they are foraging for themselves so I removed all the sugar water and the shims.

May 17,2009 – Second Inspection, We Have Larva!


Click the image to get a view of the eggs and larva.

The purpose of the second inspection, especially if you didn’t see eggs the first inspection, is to make sure the queens are laying. If not, I would need a new queen quickly or combining the 2 colonies into one. With no new bees hatching the colony will die out in a matter of a few weeks.

After being a little too anxious to get into the hives the first time I needed to make sure and observe and take my time during this check. Michele and I and Ethan (nephew) and Brad (brother-in-law) walked up to the hives. We sat outside the fence and watched the bees come and go. We could clearly see as they entered the hive. The bees on both hives look like they come out and head almost due West. (They continue to do this all summer. They head directly West and then somewhere out break pattern to find forage.) There are a lot of flowers in the field directly in front of the hive so it seems odd but I guess they do what they do. Maybe they found a good pollen source and since I was feeding them sugar syrup they needed pollen more than nectar. Maybe the flowers that direction are better nectar sources. Maybe that is just what they do.

After lunch we open the hives. I was concerned that we would find more comb in the empty hive body again. Also I decided to open the stronger Hive 1 first so they would be regrouping when we opened Hive 2. That should help prevent any robbing if Hive 2 is actually weaker.

I opened Hive 1. It had finished the syrup and the rest of the can. There was s little extra comb on the top bars. The pollen substitute was partially eaten. I noticed I hadn’t spaced the frames evenly and when I pulled the 2nd or 3rd they had built a double thick section of comb. I removed the one outside section and pulled the frame. We found the queen easily and there was obvious pollen stores. Next I looked for larva and saw them! Hurray! The queen is laying! They looked white and shiny just as they are supposed to. I pulled another frame and found more. There were still several frames that were not drawn out yet, so I put on a new bag of syrup, replaced the empty hive body with the shim I had made and closed up. A lot of bees stayed on the body and comb scraps so we left them outside the entrance to give the bees a chance to make their way back inside. And hopefully I spaced the frames better.

Hive 2 looked much better. No big out of place comb. They had also finished their bag of syrup but the can looked like the holes were plugged up with dried sugar and they couldn’t get to it. I scraped a little comb, not much, and pulled frames. Michele found the unmarked queen quickly. I found larva! Yes! Both queens are laying! I pulled another frame and found more. Pollen was also present. Also had bees on excess comb in the empty hive body. Same as Hive 1 – put the shim on and put in a feeder bag, spaced frames, and closed up. No Stings!

Now, what do I do with this extra comb? Some of the kids wanted to bring it to school to show the class. Pat my mentor said we could use it for hand cream. The book from class has recipes for creams, lotions, and lip balm. Some of it is cool just to look at. (So here it is September and I still haven’t figured out what to do with it!)

May 13, 2009

Talked to my mentor last night and she said that it wasn’t all that uncommon for the bees to build wax in the empty spot. There is something called “bee space”. Bees want to plug up anything less than 1/4 of an inch with propolis and build wax comb in anything bigger than 3/8 inch. Propolis is a sticky resin-type substance that the bees collect from plants. There was a big open space where the Ziploc feeders were so they started building comb. She said since it is nectar flow time I can take the feed bags out and take off the extra empty hive body and put the inner cover right on top of the one hive body. Without the extra space they should redirect all comb building to the frames. She also said, be careful with that comb, the queen might be on it. Oh great! Since it broke off and fell to the ground and then I picked it up and dropped it I again I am sure glad we found the queen later on in the bottom hive body! How much would that stink to kill my queen a week in? She also said we could keep the comb to make beeswax soap or hand cream. She said to keep feeding the other hive and if they get way out of proportion strength-wise we would deal with that a little later. Finally, when 6.5 to 7 frames are built out with comb I should put the second hive body with new frames on, probably 2-3 weeks from when I looked at them. Next inspection (Saturday) we should see eggs and hopefully larva. These next few weeks before there are new bees to replace the ones dying is a pretty stressful time as the population keeps going down.

May 10, 2009 – First Inspection, The Search for Eggs

The first check after installation day! I was pretty nervous heading up to the hives. You can’t see them from the dirt road or the trailer. You have to go over (or around) a little hill. The nervousness builds. Did they take to the hives? Will we find the queens? Are they building comb? Had the bears decided to have lunch? So it isn’t too surprising that once we got there we jumped into pulling the hives apart without really thinking through it (a theme for the next few inspections). I decided to just wear the veil so Michele could have the full suit since she had been stung more during installation. Seemed fair that I should take more stings since it is my experiment.

Hive 1 was very happy. They were buzzing away when we got up to them. Opened the outer and inner covers and they had sucked down their sugar syrup and had a couple frames already pretty much built up with comb. They had even started storing pollen, which is important because the queen won’t start laying eggs until there are some stores to feed them, if I remember correctly. Hive 2 for some reason decided to start building comb on the inner cover. It was quite bizarre to take off the outer cover and hear that there were a lot of bees in empty hive body that was covering the syrup bags. As I lifted the inner cover I could see several hundred in the top, whereas the other hive had maybe 40-50. I started to say “why are all these bees up here” when Michele noticed there was one 6x4 inch piece of comb attached to the top of the inner cover. That’s not supposed to happen! So I need to call my mentor and ask what to do about that. Since there were so many outside of where they should be, which is down in the frames, they were a bit more upset with me messing around in there. The fact that the comb broke off and fell to the ground merely annoyed them even more! And then when I picked up the comb and it slipped out of my fingers and fell again it really didn’t help settle them down any.

But both queens were out of their boxes, which is good. A queen arrives in the package in her own little box with a few workers to attend to her, feed her, etc. The end of this little queen box has a piece of hard sugar candy. By the time they chew through it her pheremones should be spread around the hive enough so that the worker bees accept her as their queen. The worker bees in the package generally did not come from the same hive as this queen and possible came from two or more hives so it isn't a guarantee they will accept her.

We found both queens, also good. Michele spotted a drone right off. Didn’t see any eggs but I’m sure next week there will be some. I need to learn patience. I took one sting on the forearm. Again, my fault. I was right in the middle of inspecting a frame to find the queen and crushed it when I bent my elbow and I couldn’t stop what I was doing. Luckily I didn’t drop the frame since the queen was on that frame. I think every last bit of venom got in this one. Ouch! The second hive, which was the one with all the dead bees in the package, is definitely a bit weaker and building comb in the wrong place isn’t going to help them catch up. We will see if there has to be action taken after a few more weeks.

Bottom line – order another suit and we will both wear them until we get more comfortable with the bees.

May 5, 2009 – Installation Day

So I got the two packages instead of one on Sunday so we needed to make the electric fence a little bigger. Monday I was watching the weather and it went from being partly sunny with rain at night, to cloudy with rain at night, to cloudy with rain in the afternoon. I guess I should say the best time to work with bees are days that are sunny and warm but not really hot. And for installing packages you should do it later afternoon or evening so they want to bed down in the hive for the night. Hopefully I remember all that correctly from class.

We get out and take apart some of the old fence, sink the new posts and rewire the fence. All that went well and since we have had day after day after day of rain the posts sank a lot easier than last time. Then I dug out a place for the new hive and got the cinder blocks down and leveled. Then we walked over to the garden to pick the asparagus.

I decided that since the weather was going to go downhill maybe we should do one hive before the rain and do the other when everyone got there (we were expecting some family and a couple of friends to show up). It proved to be a wrong decision I think. So we get ready to start the installation and the rain starts. Bummer. Can't do it in the rain unless absolutely necessary and then you do a shortened "Foul weather install" which I didn't want to do. So we wait for awhile and it finally lets up some and I decide it is time to go. Oh, but in the time we were sitting around in the trailer Michele was looking through pictures from the motion sensor camera and there was one at night with a bear in it standing right next to the electric fence!

So we start. I get on my bee suit and Michele puts on the veil (another future problem - should have gotten her the full suit also) I grab the bees from the shed and walk up trying to do the whole "be quick but don't hurry" thing. First you pry this piece of wood from the top of the package that is covering the can of sugar syrup they eat while in the package and the little queen cage. So I got that up and took out the queen cage and a few bees get out. I put her in my pocket for later. The next step is to get the sugar syrup can out. I cannot get that darn thing out. It is so wet this trick to make a handle with duct tape didn't work. Michele comes over to help. I get stung on my thumb and I think that is when Michele got stung on her finger. We finally get it out and a bunch of bees flies out. Oh, and did I mention it is still raining a bit? I put the queen in place and then I shake the bees into the hive and a big bunch more are just flying around. Oh, and before getting the queen cage, syrup can, and dumping them you bang the package on the ground to get the bees to the bottom so they don't all come out when you open a hole up. Yeah, that doesn't make them agitated at all! I was busy so I didn't stop and look to see how many but apparently there were a good number on me, on Michele, flying around, and in the grass. My friends Andy and Chris show up around now I forget exactly when. A lot of it is a blur now. Luckily Chris brought his camera so we have pictures from now on since Michele is helping me more than either of us thought she would need to. Ok, so the worst is over (I think) now we just need to get the Ziploc bags of sugar syrup in, close up the hive and done. There are still a bunch of bees on top of the frames where the bags need to go so I put it in and let it spread out some, lift, let bees get out of the way, repeat about 15 times. Then the second bag the same. I think during this time I crushed a couple in my hands and got a couple more stings that weren't deep. Unfortunately a couple got under Michele's veil and into her hair. It must be a natural instinct in hair/fur to burrow for skin and sting so she got a couple nice ones on the back of her head before I could get the bees out. That was a little freaky. Next time either the full suit or we tie the veil better. By this time the rain stopped and I am trying to get all the bees off my suit so I could take off the head veil. It took awhile to brush them all away. Andy and Chris wanted no part of it and since Michele had been stung 3 good times by then and had her veil off she wasn't keen on getting into more bees. Around now was the low point of the bee experience so far. We have both been stung. It is crappy weather. We are both wet. It didn't go as smoothly as we had hoped and we get to do another hive!

We are now just talking waiting for whoever else is coming to show up (some of the family and my mother-in-law's dog Lily). Since it has stopped raining I decide we should get the other one done before it starts again. That turned out to be a good decision. So the others show up after another half hour or whatever, we meet and greet, and say the plan is to go now, dinner later. I go get the other package of bees. This group was much calmer and had a bunch more dead ones on the bottom of the package. We go through the entire install again and not one single sting. Worked just the way it was supposed to! A couple tried to get me but never got below skin. Before we started I showed everyone the hive parts, the frames, and the foundation. I brought them the little queen cage so they could see her. The first package the queen was marked, which means on the second segment of her body they put a dot of paint so you can pick her out quickly when doing hive maintenance. The second package had an unmarked queen so it will be a little more challenging later on to find her. I could have marked her but I didn’t have the stuff I needed and I didn’t want to kill one of my first queens anyway. Maybe next time. Michele got to see one of the drones. They are a little bigger than the workers and have thicker bodies. After you are done shaking them in you prop the package up at the front of the hive so the ones left in there and clinging to the outside will find their way into the hive with the others.

We had dinner; bbq, coleslaw, potato salad, green beans, watermelon and raspberry pie. Yum! Michele's family left and myself, Michele, Chris and Andy walked back up to the bees to turn the fence on and see how they were doing. They were all settled in. There were a few on one package that hopefully made it into the hive before it got dark and cold and they died. It was Chris' first time there so we showed him around a bit but not much since it was so wet and muddy.

In hindsight it would have been better to wait to do the first one later, but I didn't know the weather would break long enough. The second group was so much more calm and non-agitated than the first. Maybe it was just that package were calmer bees but I think it was because it was drizzling, earlier in the day, I was nervous and rushing trying to get them in without a lot of water ending up in the hive and hoping the pouring down rain didn't start again. I have to say during the first time after a couple stings looking down into this box of agitated bees, I am cold, wet, my thumb is hurting and I was thinking, "What the heck am I doing?" It looked like one of those things that was better in theory than practice. Looking at some the pictures Chris took I am pretty sure Michele felt the same! But after the second one went so much better it is looking up again. Everyone who came out seemed to enjoy it.

May 3, 2009 –What’s that buzzing sound?

We picked up the bees today. There were actually some extra packages so I was able to get a second. I will have to expand the electric fence and build another hive stand, but in the long run it will be worth it. We brought them home and I had a big cardboard box that something was delivered in that I put around them to try and keep them darker. It is a little weird to go down into the basement and hear the buzz. Then when I spray them with water and/or sugar syrup the buzzing increases in volume two or three times! Pretty weird.