**a bee in the sky**

Well, it has been about 2 weeks and 4 days since I last inspected my hives and I decided to check up on them today. I inspected them pretty late in the day, about 5:30 in the afternoon. It was the perfect temperature to go into a beehive, not too hot or too cold.

I first went into Hive Anne – and oh my! – have they been doing better! I was half expecting to go in with bees pouring out since it’s been so long since I last checked on them. But no, they weren’t as packed as I was hoping for, but they had lots of comb in all of the frames (2 frames were mediums so I could move them up when I put a super on). This was enough for me to decide to put a empty super with foundation less frames on. I moved one medium frame up to help convince the bees to start moving upwards, and put a empty deep frame in it’s spot. And then I lifted the deep off it’s bottom board, and put it aside. I placed a brand new slatted rack, that I recently just got, on top of the bottom board, and put the deep back on top. Super went on top, and then half of a Global Patty was placed on top of the frames. I carefully placed a new inner cover on top, and closed them all the way up. I may give them more sugar syrup tomarrow, to see if Anne still needs it to help build up more.

I moved on to Hive Bella, and opened the window before taking the roof off. I saw what looked like some cross combing issues, so I thought that i would just scrape it off. But I did not know that they bees had a surprise for me inside. So after carefully moving some top bars aside, I found a quite interesting piece of collapsed comb. It was too big to have just fallen and make a big mess on the bottom. So it was basically wedged in the walls, with a piece folding over the window. If you have no idea on what I might be possibly talking about, look down at the gallery and click on the pictures to get a clear idea of what I’m describing. I was wondering how I would get the comb out, but I decided to leave it until I had the appropriate cut-out tools with me.

I closed up that side of the hive, and decided to just quick open the other side to see if the queen was laying or not. On the third bar I saw the queen herself, and was quite relived that she wasn’t injured in the collapse. Then I couldn’t help myself, I went further in. The saying, ‘Curiosity killed the cat’, went well with me today. But instead, curiosity killed my confidence that I won’t get stung. The bees got angrier at me when I went further into their hive. They started to buzz loudly around my face and sting my suit. I ignored them, thinking they would calm down. But no, they got angry enough that one bee stung my right pinky, and after that I decided to put gloves on, but I could only find one. I put it on and covered my other hand with my suit’s sleeve. They kept stinging my glove and suit, and I started to smell their alarm scent.

Bananas.

I started to carefully but quickly close up, but they didn’t feel much better when I accidentally crushed some of their bee friends between the bars. I finally finished, and slid the other half of the Global Patty under the follower board. Put the roof on, and got out of there. I think they may have been angry because of the stress of the collapse, and because it was so late in the day. It was probably 6 in the evening by then. I don’t think that I have ever received a sting from this colony, so I was a bit bummed out by that. But when I was in the hive, I ignored all their warning signs and continued on. Lesson Learned: When bees start getting angry at you, close up right away before you find yourself in deep trouble!

I picked my new inner cover, slatted rack and Global Patties from BetterBee. I also got a plastic vaorra tray to go underneath my screened bottom board. But they were out of SBBs, so they will ship it in 2 weeks.

I need to do sugar dustings in both hives ASAP! I’ve been delaying too much. I’m going to try to do them every 3 weeks, but doing them every week will get rid of more mites faster. I also need to get a hinged bottom board under Hive Bella. It seems that after all having an open bottom board isn’t helping much with ventilation or mites. I will talk about this more in another post. But for now enjoy the pictures.