rub a grub
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Here’s the main reason my bees have been so angry with me and humankind lately: all of the extra comb and brood in the picture above needed to be scraped off, so I could actually inspect the hive. The white grub-looking things are larvae: stage 2 in the life cycle of a bee. Before that, they were eggs laid by the queen. After that, they were going to be pupae, locked in their cells by a wax covering over the entrance. The pupa stage is kind of like the cocoon of a moth or chrysalis of a butterfly; when pupae eat their way out of the cell, they are adults.
Angie reports that the bees were still dive-bombing people 2 days later. It’s a bit disconcerting; I feel like my children are misbehaving, badly, and I can’t do anything about it. Sigh. Fortunately my human children are much better behaved.
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2 Comments
Nicole
Hi Sarah,
Your observation hive looks cool, I'll look forward to seeing it on Saturday morning!
I find it surprising that your bees are "dive-bombing" people – Jeff and I have never heard of this type of behaviour before, nor have we experienced it with our bees (even after scraping quite a lot of comb off the bottom of the frames).
The only time I've had any similar experience is when I've stood in a flight-path, where the bees will run into me before re-orienting themselves to a different route (without stinging me) – although I'm not sure I'd characterize this as "dive-bombing", in the same way that birds dive-bomb to protect their young.
Nicole
Sarah Hemingway
Hi Nicole!
Ya, my bees are weird. The dive-bombing is more like a pestering sort of thing – they'll go for my head, and stick around and keep at it even if I'm walking away – AND nowhere near the hive. They were bothering Angie and Andrew too. Ken thinks maybe a skunk was hassling them, so I'm going to make some skunk boards.
See you tomorrow!