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bees in a glass box
.Here’s what the ob hive looks like so far! It was quite the production getting it populated – I have never been in such an angry cloud of bees. One crawled into my brand new glove and stung my hand!!! I thought I was Fort Knox with all my gear but it turns out I had a weak point. Many thanks to Andrew, who is an intern at Fertile Ground CSA, who braved the angry buzz to help me out with the glass and wood and screws..
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oh boys
. My only real issue with this video is the stingers on the boy bees. You can’t have a stinger package and a *cough* male package. There’s not enough room. The girls get the stingers, the boys get the ability to genetically alter the next generation. Fair is fair I guess. In both scenarios, the bee dies after using it once. Quite the sacrifice. Thanks Ken for sending me the link..
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saving heat
I finally was able to put in my entrance reducers today. Life is busy! Hopefully now the bees will be able to heat their homes even more efficiently. I thought for awhile about which way I should put the opening… do they look like they’re upside down? I’m not sure what’s the best way, or if it matters. This hive didn’t really care that I was putting in the entrance reducer – they’re my weaker hive for sure. If you look at this next pic, you can see the difference: These ladies were mighty ticked with me – one stung my veil (not me), and another just clung to my…
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pennies
It’s been quite a few years since pennies held any fascination for me, but beekeeping has brought them once again to a significant place in my life. My first sting as an adult was in Ken’s beeyard, and right away Steven put a penny on it for me. No swelling or pain. Weird! But wonderful. I started telling everyone who had the potential to be stung by a bee, that they should put a penny on it because it really works. My second bee sting, same story. Penny to the rescue yet again. Along the way, people questioned what it was about the pennies that gave them these magical bee-sting-soothing…
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taking a break
I haven’t done much with bees lately. First, I was recovering from my 9 stings. Now, I seem to be having some sort of reaction to something that touched my face. No one really knows, or has any concrete answers for me. I’m slathering (sparingly) the itchy red swollen stinging burning oozing parts of my face with a corticosteroid/antibiotic cream combo, and taking two kinds of antihistamine (sleepy and non), prescribed by my doctor. Needless to say I don’t really want to come into contact with potential allergens right now, especially since I’m just over the bee stings. I’m hoping it’s just (!!!) poison ivy, and not anything related to…
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counting for now
Well, the results of the poll are tied between counting until my age, or counting forever. So I guess I’ll keep track for now. If I’m going to keep accurate results, though, I should mention that I actually had 9 stings last time, not 8 as previously posted. Once they all started to swell I noticed I had another one that was overlooked in the original counting. I think I’ll be wearing more protection next time I do some radical shifting – so the numbers should stay low for awhile. Speaking of which – Ken checked the hive that I was worried about, and he thinks I’ll get away with…
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thinking
Not much happening with the bees – other than me trying to figure out what I’m going to do with them. I’ve been talking to Ken about how I should deal with the hives – well, the one hive in particular. My two hives have very different personalities, which I think can be attributed to genetics in a large way. The first hive does a really good job of reproducing – the queen lays eggs like no tomorrow, and the workers take care of them. Not so much honey, though. The second hive, full of honey! But not very many workers, when I compare it to the first hive. So…
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popeye
The above photo doesn’t much relate to the exact topic of this post, other than to show how wonderfully peaceful the bees were before they turned into suicide bombers. The results of the penny experiment: well, I reacted more than I usually do, and I think it’s because I got so many stings at once. My forearms were swollen between my wrist and elbow joints, and my upper left arm (stung quite close to my armpit). Two of the three of those stings had pennies on them, but that didn’t seem to help as much as it normally does. Other places, like my leg and back, didn’t swell up that…
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still counting
So… had an eventful time in the beeyard today. Apparently bees don’t like it when you take apart their home. 8 stings today brings my running total to 10. When do I stop counting? Take my poll!!! ….in the sidebar to the right. Should I explain myself? I was on a mission to get rid of some burr comb between the frames of the upper and lower brood chambers. They had sealed together and it was hard to put them back into the hive once I took them out to inspect them. I took the upper brood chamber off, smoked the lower chamber, started doing a bit of gentle scraping,…