Our little hive is exploding with life!!! With a most beautiful queen in charge of things, the population of bees is about to explode and our garden will surely benefit. If you look carefully at the picture above, there is one bee that looks different from the rest. That’s our queen!
Yesterday, the human Queen of the Bees stopped by for a hive inspection. It’s always a little nerve-wracking to have someone come look under the hood of a new hobby. What if we’ve been doing something all wrong??? Well, that’s why we asked a professional for a wellness check.
Queen of the Bees has twelve hives of her very own for over a decade now. One year, she harvested 1,500 pounds of honey from her girls. We refer to them as the “girls” because the “boys” don’t do much. The queen has only one mating experience in her lifetime and can produce 1.5 million bees while never leaving the hive again. The “boys” just hang out and attract mites. Not very good for hive productivity.
Our bees have been spoiled with all the fruit blossoms. We’re almost done with the apricot, cherry, and plum blossoms. The apple blossoms are almost complete. The crab apple tree is exploding with pretty pink flowers and many bees hang out there. Until the Russian Oliver bloom begins, they’ll depend on us for a little help. Once the natural bloom begins, they’ll be off and running.
When we looked in the hive today, the Queen of the Bees mentioned that if we’d waited one more week, our Queen and her subjects would have swarmed, looking for more room to lay eggs. In two weeks’ time, she has filled eight frames with brood and a little honey. There was absolutely no room left in which to expand.
Quick as a cricket, HHH brought out the second story of the hive. With eight additional frames and the in-hive feeder, she’ll have plenty of space to grow her family. To survive, bees need pollen, nectar, and tree sap. Our town is rich with all these things, just like it was meant to bee.
Ninja Neighbor has commented on delightful visits from our “girls”. I hope the neighborhood appreciates all the hard work that bees do as they pollinate our plants.
For the next month, we’ll check them once a week to make sure everything remains happy and healthy. Sometime in the next four weeks, we’ll pull their syrup and pollen patties, because it will be time for them to forage on their own.
There are so many lessons we learn each time we work the bees. Don’t swipe bees away, but flick them. If you have too many bees hanging on a frame, tap the frame pretty hard and they’ll fall off. Don’t use too much smoke when working them. They don’t like to be rolled in any way. Give them time to see what you’re planning to do and they’ll move out of the way. They love to dance at the entrance of the hive. Most importantly, move slowly.
Not all bees are the quiet and loving Saskatraz variety, like ours.
Last week, a man and his daughter were in Las Vegas, headed towards practice of some time. Walking through a park they’d visited before, a few bees started to follow them. The dad did the right thing. He told his daughter to stay calm and keep walking.
In the wink of an eye, bees attacked. The dad tried his best to take the brunt of the stings, getting stung about 100 times. He was well enough to drive them to the hospital, where doctors and nurses worked to remove all the stingers. You just never know what can happen with wild animals. They are wild and they are animals. Happily, this man and his daughter lived to talk about their experience.
Whatever you do today, you might want to read a little about bees. There is a great article about Bees and Balls. It seems that someone had enough time to watch enough bees and learned that sometimes, they like to play for no reason. Go outside. Really look at our world. It’s an amazing place.
More tomorrow.