Bees Week 5 (and 4)

The bees are plugging along just fine. Boudicca & Co. (the Italian originals) are outpacing Ekaterina’s Slavic team in terms of population & built-up frames. The Russians are still working on 1 ½ boxes, and the Italians are filling 2 ½ boxes. Today after inspecting both, I transferred a frame of Italian brood into the Russian hive, to boost the population a bit.

Boudicca is marked with a red dot, which helps a newbie like me find her. I’m getting used to what she looks like, when compared to the workers. Ekaterina is not marked, and I haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks. But there are lots of eggs, so she must be in there doing her job.

I also added a honey super to the Italian hive. After I know the bees are working in the super, I’ll install a Queen Excluder to keep the queen down in the brood boxes (aka hive body). The queen excluder is a grill that’s too small for the queen to get through, but big enough for the workers. Thus, after a few weeks, there will be no brood, and the space will be used for honey storage. The honey in the supers will be for harvest, and anything below will be for the bees’ use through the winter. It’s too soon to be counting my honey jars, though. There are a few months yet for that.

They’re only about 80% built up and filled, but the lower brood boxes are getting heavy! I’m glad I didn’t go with the large, traditional size for brood boxes. The medium boxes like I have can weigh 60 to 70 pounds when full, and the large boxes 90 pounds.

The bees have been coming to Karin’s container bog gardens for water. These are near the back door, so we get to say hello to the bees just about every time we walk by. They really like two cobalt blue bowls, which show off their golden color quite effectively.

Last week our friend Lex came to visit. She donned veil and gloves (no suit for either of us), and helped me inspect. She spotted a bee dance, which is pretty nifty to watch. Unfortunately the movie we took of it didn’t come out. We saw some blood red pollen coming in, and are curious as to what plant that came from (eucalyptus?). After we were done, Lex said that she had started out being nervous about the bees, but was inspired by my relaxed attitude. I feel like such a role model : )

I’m reading The Secret Life of Bees, a novel by Sue Monk Kidd. I’m no good at writing capsule reviews, but I’ll say it’s a good book about self-discovery and becoming one with the honeybees. I’m not done yet, and I already want to reread it.