Thursday, June 30, 2011

Beek Pictures and the First Sting.

So we did a thorough checking of the bee hive last week. Here's a few pics of our findings. :)

I did get a little heavy handed with the smoker...........
Only 3 of the 10 frames were filled, but they still looked good! Lots of busy bees, brood, and larvae!


Today we opened the hive again so that we could place a bag feeder inside.

so much for the whole - and no one got stung!

and who do you think gets stung???

ME!!

Ingrates!


now i wouldn't have been stung if it hadn't been for the fact that she landed on my shoe and climbed up my pant leg - and me not thinking anything of it brushed at whatever was crawling up my leg....sigh.


It frustrated me, so I had to walk off for a few secs, pull out the stinger, and re-collect myself - and I decided to get my gloves because I originally went without out.

Funny, no veil, no jacket, but I feel safer with those gloves!

So while I was doing that, E slit open the bag feeder for me. I then went to close up the hive.

Freaked out (i know i know dumb!) because there were a bunch of bees (looked like young bees) on the inner cover and like an idiot I dropped the inner cover. (you do NOT want to do this!) a whole cluster of bees in the grass!!

I gently set the edge of the inner cover next to the bees, hoping it would smell like home and they'd crawl on it - and...and...it worked!!!! A couple of bees were still stuck in the grass, so with my glove I gently helped them onto the inner cover, and then we put them back into the hive.

Whew.

But.

the girls must have been hot today, because everyone was at the top of the frames, butts in the air, waving their wings like a thousand little fans.

And no, I did not take pictures.

One gal in particular was pretty mad at me when I picked up the inner cover from the ground - kept flying at my face.

And I was JUST trying to FEED them - although we did take a quickie peek at frame 4, because 3 days ago they were just starting on it. Today, they've got it almost full, and several of the cells had fat little larvae in them! (so Victoria has already visited that frame, too! yay)

So, got it all closed up, worried that I might have squished a couple gals when I put the telescoping top cover on, but I hope not.

Came in the house, and thought something else was crawling in my other pants leg....so I yanked those pants off, shook them out - almost put them back on, chickened out, and pulled a pair shorts out instead

and now - hope I don't have to go back in for another week!

How long do those bag feeders last anyway???


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