Leave the Bees bee

I asked Alan about adding another box at this late date. He said not to; that I should just check the weight of the box through the winter and feed the bees when the box gets light. So that's the plan. I'll stop looking in on them now and just let the bees bee.

Quitter

Note: The bees have drawn out the frame that I added last week! I made a new bee veil--it is made with a courser net and bias binding to give the seams strength.

Today I was a quitter. I started my hive inspection around 1:00pm. It was cool outside, but over 60, and I thought it would be okay--lots of bees were flying and bringing in pollen. I got through two frames, and the bees began clumping up on top of the frames, and it became impossible to get my fingers in the right places to get any more out. As carefully as possible, I replaced the two frames and closed the lid. I don't know if it's too cold or if there are too many bees these days.

They are doing beautiful work though. The frame that I added last week was almost completely drawn out and full of nectar. They were in the middle of capping some of it, so it was partially opened and partially sealed--very pretty.

I am debating now about adding the second box. It seems so late in the year, and the weather is so cold. I worry about them being able to keep that big space warm enough.

I have been thinking a lot lately about doing inspections without gloves. It's so hard to maneuver in the hive with my bulky goat-skin gloves, and I might kill fewer bees with the threat of a sting when I squish one, and I would be able to better feel when a bee is in the way and in danger of being squished. But it's scary. I found a bee creeping up the inside of my pant leg today, and I almost jumped out of my skin trying to get the poor thing off of me. But at other times I manage to stay in control--the bees often land on me when I observe them, and I've learned to just breathe slowly and wait for the bee to leave, which they always do.

I think I will wait until the spring to inspect without gloves--it's probably just about time to stop inspections for the winter anyway.

New Sheriff in Town

Notes: Bees have drunk 1/8 quart sugar water.

The frames haven't changed much since last week. Here's what they looked like today:

1. Uncapped honey on one side; 2/3 full of capped honey on the other side.
2. 3/4 full of capped honey, 1/4 open brood; 1/2 full of honey, 1/2 brood
3. Brood
4. Brood
5. Brood
6. pollen, which looked like it was soaked with honey, honey.

The wax in frames 5 and 6, which are mostly brood, is very dark in color and seems to be always capped. Sometimes I see a couple of uncapped brood or small sections with larva, but I'm starting to wonder if something is wrong with the brood, and how long it has actually been capped. I will start keeping a closer eye on this.

The bees were a little feisty today; I used smoke generously for both our peace of mind, but a couple of the bees attacked my hive tool and flew kamikaze-style into my veil. One even got caught INside of my veil. I think it's time to trade in my home-made veil for a real one. Not sure why the feistiness; perhaps they are getting a little defensive with the change in weather. It was about 65F when I did the inspection today, much cooler than normal.

I've stopped worrying about the yeasty smell. It has lessened, and I'm starting to think that that is just the way my bees smell. They seem fine otherwise.

Not sure if there is a new sheriff in town or if the bees were under attack today. There were a couple of guard bees at the hive entrance who were closely inspecting and even shoving away some of the incoming bees.

Note: Added 1 qt. 2:1 sugar water

Cheeky Squirrel

In the time that I spend watching the bees, I observe many things in my backyard that I probably wouldn't otherwise. One of those things is the cheeky resident squirrel. She is loud, flamboyant, and a bit of a bully. I've seen her run right up to a morning dove and dare it to hold it's post on the fence. Today, she calmly walked across the fence on the north west side of the yard, stopped for a moment (a long moment that made me wonder what she was thinking about), and then suddenly shot across two yards of fence so quickly that I thought she flew. Then she ran along the south fence, jumped into the pine tree and launched into a long series of barks followed by chatter with each syllable punctuated by a sharp jerk of her tail. She must have gone on like that for five minutes. Then she started edging toward me, all the while barking and swishing her tail. She stopped for a moment and looked at me. Then she looked over into the neighbor's yard and told them some long drawn out tale--probably about the human who had the audacity to sit on a hammock in her yard. Finally, she tried staring me down--I very seriously thought that she was going to jump on my face.

Normally, I see her jump from the pine tree onto the ornamental tree in the middle of the yard and then onto the eucalyptus on the north east side of the yard. I wondered if she wanted to go across the hammock, so I moved and gave her the right of way, fearing that I would lose an eye if I didn't. Next thing I knew, she was jumping from tree to tree as normal.

I found a big nut under the hammock yesterday--I think it is from one of the palm trees in the neighborhood. I also saw a squirrel (might have been her) run across the yard with a similar nut. Maybe the nut under the hammock was hers and she was upset that I was camped out over her treasure. Who knows?

I also saw a hummingbird. It landed on the tree above the bee hive, flew down to where the chicken waterer is, had a look in the hive and then flew off. I wasn't sure if he was considering having a drink or just thought that my bees looked like tasty little bits of protein.

The Face that Launched a Thousand Bees

Notes: I changed the hive entrance reducer to the medium entrance size this morning. I've started to see a few wingless wonders again. I will do a mite count starting tomorrow AM.

Yep, that's the queen's name--Helen! It came to me this morning as I watched the bees launching themselves in and out of the hive entrance. At the same time I was trying to think of the perfect queenly name for my queen. It had to connote both beauty and power. Elizabeth? No, too virginal. Hippolyta? No, too exotic. Victoria? No, too petite. Hmmm. Then, while I watched the sun reflecting off of the bees, they glowed golden and I thought of glistening Roman soldiers and the Mediterranean, and I had my name! Kari will be so relieved that Helen is no longer nameless.

Attitude A-plenty

Notes: Sugar water from 10/28 was gone. Added 1 quart 2:1 sugar water. The bees had completely drawn out the empty frame I added on 10/24! It's getting a little crowded during high traffic times of the day--time to remove the entrance reducer.

Unfortunately, I began today's inspection without first taking off my day. Sometimes it takes an external observation to realize how busy I have made my life. Louise is staying with me right now, and I have had very little time to spend with her. I've been getting up at 5:00 am to get to work early to work on an important presentation and get caught up on all of the things that idled while I was on travel. I work until 5:00 pm and then breeze in, get some dinner and begin studying. Yesterday, I had class from 6:00 to 9:00, and Louise went out for drinks with the girls, so I saw her for about an hour the whole day! Today, with my fourth cold in six weeks going strong, my presentation finally complete and presented and my bee duties neglected, I threw in the towel and left work at lunch time.

So that is where my mind was when I opened the hive. Not surprising, the first thing I did was squash a bee, which upset the other bees and made the whole inspection challenging and stressful. The bees crowded around the frame where their buddy had been squashed, and it became difficult to get my fingers and tools where they needed to go to lift out the frame. And then the bees poured into the spaces between the frames so that I couldn't get them re-snugged. The density of the net on my home-made veil and the position of the sun conspired to make seeing rather hard. The inspection took almost 45 minutes, which I know is too long to have the hive open when the sun is getting ready to set. I had several moments where I wanted to just throw the lid on and leave them be. But I knew that that would only lead to a bigger mess on my next inspection. I also wondered if part of the problem was simply too many bees. They have now almost filled the first deep, so maybe it's time to add the second deep. Should I do that so late in the season? Something to research.

I couldn't get my smoker lit either--the decent matches were no where to be found, and I quickly made my way through five tiny matches without getting the thing going. I ended up just blowing air from the smoker to disband the bees when they clumped up. They didn't seem to like it and tried attacking the smoker spout! Not sure who had the most attitude today--me or the bees.

With my complaining and justifying out of the way, let me tell you what a really wonderful inspection it was. I saw the queen! As I lifted out the very last frame, my stick-to-it-ness was rewarded by seeing my gorgeous queen bee strolling across the cells of multi-colored pollen that make up the back side of the very last frame in the hive. And the bees have been incredibly busy. They completely drew out and filled the seventh frame that I added on 10/24. Go bees, go!

Here is the status of each frame starting from the one furthest from the follower board:

1. One side is completely empty. The other is about 1/2 full of capped honey
2. This is the new frame. It was completely drawn out. One side had honey, pollen, larva and eggs. The other side was honey and pollen
3. This one was almost entirely capped brood.
   
4. Brood and capped brood.
   
5. Capped brood w/ some open brood.
6. Capped brood w/ some open brood.
7. Honey and pollen on one side. Almost all pollen on the other side and the queen.
   

I should have added the final frame to the inside of the first frame, but just wanted to get out of there. Perhaps the bees will begin it on there own.