More Buzz

Yesterday, it was decided that a bee colony should be split into two because it had grown large enough to fill two hives.  We piled into the front and back of the beat-up Ford pick-up truck, along with the needed equipment, and drove up to the old apple orchard where the hive to be split was located.  Megan and Kirstin opened the hive known as Frannie and began looking for a couple of frames containing plenty of developing bee larvae (also known as "brood").  The plan was to move those frames to a new hive, without the queen, along with some nursemaid worker bees to care for the larvae, and a couple of frames of honeycomb for their winter food supply.  When the worker bees discover there is no queen in the hive, they will begin feeding one of the female larvae a substance called royal jelly, which causes that larva to develop into a queen.

This plan sounded reasonably simple, but it became more and more complicated as one by one people were either stung or harassed by the bees (those who were harassed were wearing dark colors, which makes them targets for bees).  Once you've been stung, especially if the sting is on a hand, you have to move away from the hive because pheromones are being emitted from the sting area that will cause more bees to attack.

After a bit of not-so-smooth maneuvering, the brood was transferred along with the nursemaids, but we still needed to transfer the honey.  A third hive known as Queen was opened because there weren't excess frames of honey in Frannie.  At this point, I had to step in and assist Megan with separating the frames in Queen in order to locate some honey.  I put on a hat with a wire mesh mask that surrounded my head (also known as a "veil"), pulled a hive tool out of my back pocket, and carefully worked with Megan to pry the frames apart, all the while negotiating with the numerous bees that were crawling all over the frames.  As I often played with bees and other insects as a kid, I was quite calm standing over the buzzing hive.  Megan found the honey we were searching for and I gently pulled the somewhat heavy frame from the hive and held it up for inspection.  I then carefully handed the frame to Megan and she carried it to the new hive.  It was placed near the outer wall of the hive so that it can serve as insulation as well as a food supply during the cold winter months.  I'm pleased to say that I was not stung in this process, but I know I will be eventually.  I'll be sure to give a full account when that happens.

Today, I handled the morning watering in the greenhouse then caught up with the others at the paddock where I cleaned one of Eva's hooves.   Because it was raining, we spent the rest of the day in the greenhouse weeding and removing dead and/or yellowing leaves from the numerous plants for the upcoming plant sale.  We finished early, which gave me time to get my reading done for tomorrow's discussion group.  I had planned to do some of my cleaning chores in the dorm, but somehow never quite got around to them.  Now it's time for bed...