Stings on stings
I'm not having a good time with the bees. For starters, in both hives, the queens have snuck into a super - so everyone essentially has a brood and a half to fill with baby bees, while I am two supers (that could be full of honey) down.
On the positive front, Hollywood is going great guns working with two supers above the brood +1/2, one of which was full at the weekend, so I decided to go for it and extract. Of course at the moment, I can't do this in the kitchen, basically because there isn't one, which meant uncapping and spinning the frames outside where the sink is currently.
The exercise, in sweltering heat, turned into Happy Hour for every bee and wasp in The Square. And for the bees in Hollywood, Unhappy Hour, as they were absolutely incandescent with rage that I'd taken their honey and spent the rest of the afternoon chasing me around the garden, attempting to sting as much of me as possible. Working in teams, clumps of bees targeted the seams of my gloves, tops of my boots, knees and thighs. They lay in wait outside the front door for me and took up positions by what used to be the back door, buzzing along the wall and into the garden. It was carnage.
Sweating and swelling in my sweltering bee suit, covered in stings, I tried to eradicate as much of the honey from the garden and surfaces as possible, as quickly as possible, to try and discourage the onslaught. But in the end it wasn't until it started to get dark that the furious insects retreated back to base.
I suppose on the positive front I did get around 201bs of honey! Hard won booty. I'm looking forward to NOT having to go through that again until the end of the summer.
As for sorting out the rogue queens, I'm slightly despairing. First up I need to get a new queen catcher as mine has gone walkabout. When I'm feeling brave I'll try to find the girls and move them into the right place, so that I take both hives down to a single brood box ready for autumn/winter. Famous last plan...they're so damned hard to see, and they move like lightening.
On the positive front, Hollywood is going great guns working with two supers above the brood +1/2, one of which was full at the weekend, so I decided to go for it and extract. Of course at the moment, I can't do this in the kitchen, basically because there isn't one, which meant uncapping and spinning the frames outside where the sink is currently.
The exercise, in sweltering heat, turned into Happy Hour for every bee and wasp in The Square. And for the bees in Hollywood, Unhappy Hour, as they were absolutely incandescent with rage that I'd taken their honey and spent the rest of the afternoon chasing me around the garden, attempting to sting as much of me as possible. Working in teams, clumps of bees targeted the seams of my gloves, tops of my boots, knees and thighs. They lay in wait outside the front door for me and took up positions by what used to be the back door, buzzing along the wall and into the garden. It was carnage.
Sweating and swelling in my sweltering bee suit, covered in stings, I tried to eradicate as much of the honey from the garden and surfaces as possible, as quickly as possible, to try and discourage the onslaught. But in the end it wasn't until it started to get dark that the furious insects retreated back to base.
I suppose on the positive front I did get around 201bs of honey! Hard won booty. I'm looking forward to NOT having to go through that again until the end of the summer.
As for sorting out the rogue queens, I'm slightly despairing. First up I need to get a new queen catcher as mine has gone walkabout. When I'm feeling brave I'll try to find the girls and move them into the right place, so that I take both hives down to a single brood box ready for autumn/winter. Famous last plan...they're so damned hard to see, and they move like lightening.
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