A Humble Hum

Ey! Goddes mercy!” sayd our Hoste tho,
Now such a wyf I pray God keep me fro.
Lo, suche sleightes and subtilitees
In wommen be; for ay as busy as bees
Be thay us seely men for to desceyve,
And from a soth ever a lie thay weyve.
And by this Marchaundes tale it proveth wel.

– Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, 1386-1400

Well that’s not exactly the kind of busy I’ve been but you have to appreciate that since I’ve been “busy as a bee” I haven’t kept a good record of my bees. Here is what you’ve missed:

Saturday, April 21st it was pretty rainy, with a break just long enough for Jason & I to remove the newspaper from between the brood boxes and put in the couple of frames it was lacking from the package install (took them from the nuc). We only had time to peep a few frames since a storm was looming and the ladies were none too happy to have their roof removed. They were all staring at us. So we didn’t see any eggs but the queen cage was empty and there seemed to be a good population so I was happy enough with what I saw. We also pulled the little swarm nuc out of the yard since it had dwindled to only a handful of bees. I wonder where those little souls went in the hours after their home was stolen. We’ll never know! That left me with one frame of capped/uncapped honey to stick in the freezer in the house. Next to two half-gallons of Blue Bell.

Saturday, April 28th we cleaned out the garage and made a spot on top of the keg fridge for all the equipment that was SUPPOSED to be in the bee yard this season. What a sad reminder every time I pull into the garage! I can’t wait to see bees crawling all over the front of my chevron hive next year. If any swarm-minded bees are reading this: we have vacancy.

Sunday, April 29th we finally saw some glorious eggs in the hive! And bee babies (larva)! And a nice solid brood pattern! I say we’re back in the game now but still oh-so-behind. They had done almost nothing with the empty super on top which was disappointing (but eggs! at lease Gloria is doing her bit)! There wasn’t a whopping lot of bees in the bottom box but there were eggs both up and downstairs so we didn’t reverse the boxes. I guess I know better than to think the bees will build new comb when they have plenty of existing room – especially since I assumed the poplar flow was so grand that I didn’t need to stimulate them into wax production with 2:1 syrup. That was another dumb assumption. So later today I’m going to take a quick peek at that super which will likely show no progress and stick the feeder back on to see if that will get them to build it out. Next weekend we’ll do a more thorough inspection if we can steal an hour away from all the graduation festivities! My little sister is almost done with college. I can’t believe it.

[more hot bee swag! bee pendant from dear ol' Jen, I've worn it like 10 times already, and bee shorts from my Mom & Anthropologie. photos my own.]

4.29 INSPECTION AUDIO

Last time I wrote, our only hope was to pray for a package to become available and in the middle of a chaotic work week Busy Bee Apiary in Chapel Hill let me know that some packages had become available on Friday. And I was like heck yes! I love this hobby enough to keep droppin dimes on it! My mom was going to be in town so the plan was to get off work a little early and meet her to pick up the precious cargo. Instead, I got tied up and Mom picked them up for me on her way into town. Thanks Mom! You’re officially a beekeeper’s assistant now. Especially since you didn’t freak out when one of the bees got out in the car. Heh. Sorry about that.

So for the second time in my beekeeping career I got to install a 3lb package, but this time with the assistance of my sister Shelly! You look cute in a bee suit, girl. My plan was to install them into the top box and put some newspaper between them and the stragglers below. I thought I would have to brush bees off each frame in the top box into the bottom box before I did the installation but there were so few bees up there we just stuck the newspaper down there, pulled out a few frames, gave them a good spray, and shook ‘em in. The queen cage is stuck between say frames 7 & 8 which are full of honey and as soon as a little poured into the cage they went right to it! Same with the rest of the package. I set a super on top with just a few frames and the package. I didn’t want them marching into the front entrance and getting into fights. And we stuck some sticks under the inner cover to make an entrance for the new girls. I think 75% of beekeeping is improvisation.

 [ Thanks Mom for the photography & videography assistance! ]

FRIDAY’S PACKAGE INSTALL AUDIO

Also here is a sneak peek from a very exciting Humble Hum project. More details soon!

Our bees came fresh from Georgia the night before. Each package contains 3lbs of Italians and a queen.

Bee lab two meant (yay!) handling the bees for the first time. My bee veil (which is a child’s size veil to fit my pea-head), smoker, & hive tool arrived just in time from Brushy Mountain Bee Supply on Friday. Installing a package is really not as complicated & scary as it sounds- you just spray the package down with sugar syrup (so they are less flighty), pull the queen in her little cage out, shake the bees into the open hive (with a few frames removed), and stick the queen cage down in there. I’m not sure smoking the hive is even that necessary- at least MY bees are very friendly. After a few days, the bees will eat through the candy plug and accept their new queen and she’ll lay lots and lots of eggs and the colony will live happily ever after. More photos on flickr.