You know how you plan to do something but life gets in the way? You need to go visit Aunt Margaret but the kids are sick and the car broke down so you just don't get to it.
Yeah, it was kind of like that.
The last time I opened my beehive and looked inside, I wondered if I still had a queen. I couldn't see any eggs (but those eggs are really tiny and hard to spot) and there were only a few larvae. But it was high summer and queens often slow down in the heat and take a break from laying. I'd recently added the top medium-size hive box (a "honey super") and they hadn't done much to it at all, although there were bees on the new frames.
And since it was high summer and not much was blooming and it was hot and dry which makes nectar gathering hard for bees (known as "the dearth"), I started feeding them sugar water.
And because my in-hive feeder is for a large hive box, not a medium, I took out three of the medium frames and set two quart jar feeders inside that space. I knew it wasn't the best plan, but I didn't have another hive box that I could set on top to hold the feeder jars (which would have been a much better idea, by the way).
And I was checking them every week, so I would keep an eye on things, right?
Well....
Yes, I'm making excuses. The real reason was the heat. I didn't open the hive for a month. Which means I didn't refill those feeder jars either. I'm a bad bee mom.
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But then the late summer flowers started blooming: sunflowers, bitterweed, broomweed, goldenrod and other plants. So I crossed my fingers and hoped the bees were doing ok. I walked out to the hive every week or so to make sure there were still bees coming and going. And I kept the hummingbird feeders filled; one of the feeders has been commandeered by bees.
The weather finally cooled down a bit and I solemnly vowed that I was going to check the hive on Saturday. I put on all of my bee gear, since other keepers had mentioned that their bees were a bit cranky this time of year. I took plenty of fuel for the smoker with me. I duct-taped the more-vulnerable parts of my clothing (around my ankles in particular). And I pushed my gear-laden wheelbarrow out the gate, across the field and out to my hive.
I carefully removed the lid and puffed the bee smoker to calm them down. There were a lot of bees. Evidently they're not queenless after all, and I heaved a sigh of relief.
Now remember, on my last check they hadn't even started building comb in that top hive box. I figured I had plenty of time before they ran out of space. (Bees are kind of like clutter: they expand their hive to fit the available space.) I was so wrong!
They'd gone crazy.
And those bees weren't very happy with me. It took an hour using my hive tool to cut off the wonky comb, most of which was full of honey, and get the jars loose. I refilled one - because I still don't have a better way to feed them, which is also my fault - but the other was so sticky I couldn't get the lid off of it, so I put that one in the wheelbarrow to take back to the house.
Are you wondering what sort of gear a beekeeper needs?
Here are my recommendations for basic beekeeping equipment for new beekeepers.
Here are my recommendations for basic beekeeping equipment for new beekeepers.
I finished cutting out all the excess comb and put it in a bucket, bees and all. Two bees tried to sting me through my goat-skin gloves. Another was laser-focused on my face and refused to leave, so I had to walk away for several minutes until she gave up and went back home. I was so thankful I'd put on ALL of my bee clothing (a pair of camouflage pants over my jeans, a long sleeved-shirt under my bee jacket, and veil plus gloves).
Here are the RIGHT ways to feed your bees.
So I closed up the hive and lived to inspect them another day. You can bet I won't wait another month. Next week I'll pull out the other quart jar feeder and add those three empty frames back in so they won't build more crazy honeycomb.
In the meantime, I put the bucket of comb and honey about 50 feet away from the hive, near their water source, close enough for my bees to find it, but far enough away that bees from other hives wouldn't find my hive and try to rob it of its honey. The comb was still full of bees so I knew they'd call in reinforcements and the honey would be gone shortly. I checked at sunset and it was already gone, leaving just the delicate beeswax honeycomb behind. They'd taken the honey back to their hive and stored it somewhere other than in that crazy comb I removed.
Now I'll begin feeding my bees the right way. It was, after all, my fault that they went crazy.
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