Hurt So Good

I got stung on the thigh today, and it swelled up to the size of a softball! I didn't tuck my pants into my socks, and one of the girls crawled up the inside of my pant leg and showed me who was boss. Ouch! It's my first real reaction to a sting since taking up with the bees.

It hurt, but harvesting my first frame of honey more than made up for it! The gals had drawn out a frame of wax and just kept extending the cells on one side into the empty frame next door. I wasn't sure how to fix it without making a big mess, so I decided to harvest it. The bees seem to be finding plenty of nectar and pollen, so I didn't think they would miss it.

The frame was about 3/4 drawn out and capped on one side; it yielded about 3 quarts of honey! Most of it I crushed to extract the honey, but I left some of the wax intact because in my opinion, squishing the honey out of the wax into your mouth is the best way to eat honey. I'm also working on purifying some wax to make candles or lip balm.

Putting the drawn out frame into the brood chamber and creating a nuc seems to have prevented a swarm, for now anyway. I put the nuc into an eight frame Langstroth today with a follower board to keep everyone nice and snug. I'll be keeping an eye on that hive to see how things progress over the next few weeks. Hopefully we'll see some eggs soon!