Rabun County Marauder

I don't know where the fall went.  It's November and I have no idea what happened to autumn.  Today I'm in Rabun County.  I've missed being up here and have entirely missed the fall leaves.  I haven't done a good job of checking on the bees up here, so I wanted both to check on the bees and turn on the heat at my house so that the pipes won't freeze as the winter arrives.

I arrived at the School House Garden and was shocked with what I found.  As you remember, one of the hives had died.  I left one box on the cinder blocks - a slatted rack, a screened bottom board, one hive box, an inner cover and a telescoping cover.  My hope was that in the spring a hive might move in as a swarm.

Today here's what the empty hive looked like:

I don't  know how to think of this - the cover on the hive box could not have been off for long because the wood is not discolored and I haven't been here in two months.  The slatted rack and screened bottom board are discolored and wrecked.  I don't know if an animal did this or since the weeds had been cut back, if a tractor ran over the whole thing.

At the remaining live hive, I saw an occasional bee enter.  The bees all entered on the same side of the entry, but there were very few of them.  

I had brought an empty 10 frame box to act as a surround for a rapid feeder.  So I set up the rapid feeder over the inner cover and filled it with honey.  It was 62 degrees.  Generally when a hive is in need of stores, when you put on the feeder, at least one or two bees immediately show up in the tube to sample the new honey.  

Not a bee appeared.

I lifted the hive from the bottom hand hold.  It seemed relatively heavy as if they had put on a good amount of stores.  

I get really cautious when I've lost a hive, so I didn't go into the box and just left to go to WalMart.  While I perused the aisles at WalMart, I kept thinking about the bees.  Were those hive bees or were they marauding bees from the nearby hive in the wall of the old school building?  Should I have left all of that good honey on a deadout when there are hives that could use it in Atlanta?  

Needless to say, after I checked out of WalMart, I drove back over to the community garden and opened up the hive box.  

The top box held honey but no bees.  But on the second and bottom box there were bees covering four frames in each box (8 frames of bees in all).  I knew they had clustered there the night before when the temperatures were in the 30s, and I felt relieved to see them.

Still cautious, I didn't check any further to see if there were a queen, but instead closed up the hive with a sigh of relief.  I'll check them again in a few weeks.

I rode home wearing my sunglasses this morning because as probably all of you know, during the fall, leaves look more colorful through sunglasses than they actually are so I could have the illusion that I didn't miss the fall leaves in North Georgia!

Let's See - Eight Frame/Ten Frame - Hmmmm

So the hives at Sebastian and Christina's house (to be referred to going forward as S&C) include a blue 10 frame box and a yellow 8 frame box. 

Of course, the reason I keep this blog is so that I can help myself remember stuff - did I look at the installation pictures before I drove over to add a new box and pick up the nuc boxes? 

No......

As a result I arrived to work on the S&C hives with two eight frame boxes to add to the two hives.

The bees looked good.  You can see them peeking between the frames.



The queens in both boxes were laying.  I had my camera set on "Kids and Pets" from being with the grandkids on Easter and I forgot to change the settings to "foliage" which works best for the bee pictures, so the focus isn't as clear.  If you look at the cells, even with the wrong setting, you can still see c-shaped larvae. 



The frames looked really good.



So I made two (count them, TWO) mistakes at this inspection (at least).  First in the yellow hive, I dropped, yes, dropped, a frame - a deep frame full of bees. I don't think I've done that in five years. Of course, they weren't happy and of course, Sebastian was watching me.

And for mistake #2, I brought an eight frame box for a 10 frame hive.  Oops!



Luckily as I mentioned earlier, Sebastian was there.  He had a board that we could use to cover the exposed two frames.

So we put the board on the box as it looked below.

This morning the temperature was 44 degrees in Atlanta but I didn't want to leave the hive in such vulnerable shape.  So I planned to go over early this morning around 9:00 to rectify the problem, taking a 10 frame box this time.



I was in a hurry this morning.  I had to go to Pickens, SC to give a speech tonight so I had to get this task out of the way....so I went to take care of the hive before I went to work. 

It was cold and I had on a fleece jacket.  Now this was my thinking - it will be too cold for the bees to move; I'll just leave on the fleece and put on a veil.  I didn't have time to deal with the smoker. 

Well, as you can imagine, when I opened the hive, the bees were not happy for me to be exposing them to the 44 degree air. I was made really aware the minute bees started crawling up my sleeves - OH, that's why I needed the bee jacket.  I put on a hive drape, but I really wished for the smoker.

 I got at least five stings on my hands.  And the veil I put on was one I keep for visitors - it's not secured at the bottom so bees flew in and I got three stings on my neck (and I had to give a speech tonight!)

The good news is that I've been stung enough that by this afternoon the marks on my hands were gone and the place on my neck that was about three inches in diameter had gotten to be about the size of a quarter. 

I forgot to mention that one other thing happened.  In an eight frame box, there's a little wiggle room.  It's never hard to get the frames into the box.  Not the same story with a 10 frame - it's a snug fit.

So while these bees were trying to remind me that I was invading their home, I'm trying quickly to fit 10 frames back into the box.  I got frustrated and put the hive tool on the one frame that wouldn't quite go into place and hit it with the heel of my hand - so now my hand is bleeding all over everywhere, and while I have Benadryl in my hive kit, I have no bandaids.

I locked the gate to S&C's backyard, and I left for work with a bright red neck, a bleeding hand and stings on both hands.

Ah, beekeeping:  ever the adventure!