3 Weeks.

Tomorrow will be 3 weeks since I got my bees. I have not been stung. Yet.

Over the past few weeks, I've done more studying and went to a local beekeepers club meeting, and sat through an hour long talk from local bee celebrity, Dr Jamie Ellis from the University of Florida bee lab. Yes, they have a bee lab there. He spoke for an hour about pesticides and bees. It was both interesting and utterly boring at the same time. Not that I'm not concerned about pesticides and bees, I am, but he was very very sciencey and I did catch myself yawning and glazing over a few times. Props to hubs who did not fall asleep, I know that was hard for him. He's a trooper. For the record and in summary, Dr Ellis is not all too concerned with pesticides. He made valid points and backed it up with science, but he only went over immediate exposure effects and didn't go into long term exposure risks and that's what I'm concerned with. So meh.

I also went to a Honey Bee Festival. I was super excited to go and bee with my people. It was fun and crowded but not overly crowded, but I was low key disappointed that it was much more about local crafts/merchants than it was about bees. But I bought a screened bottom board for my hive, a pretty resin necklace with real honeycomb inside, and of course some local honey. I also had a kick ass burger from a burger food truck so that made up for any disappointment. 9/10 would go again and look at jewelry and things people made and eat a burger.

Anyway, it's Saturday. Time to inspect the hive.

My last full inspection was 2 weeks ago. I have opened 'er up a couple times since then, and the county inspector came and did his inspecting, but I haven't done a full inspection in 2 weeks.

Well crappity crap, I did not find the queen. Again. I suck at finding her. She's there, somewhere, because I found new eggs. Honestly, finding the queen is not the goal, finding new eggs is. If there are new eggs in the cells, a single egg per cell, the queen is there and doing what she's supposed to be doing. One day old eggs are upright at the bottom of the cell. Two day old, they're tilted a little. Three days and they're laying on the bottom. So I can tell you within a 24 hour window of accuracy, how recently my queen has been laying eggs. She is definitely in there somewhere. I also check her laying pattern. If she's filling almost every cell, good queen. If she were filling cells sporadically, not good queen, she's probably getting old. Healthy queen bees will be productive for 2-3 years, and may continue to live for another 2 years or so, but their productivity will start to wane.

My queen is almost 2 months old, and she's being a good queen. Single new eggs? Check. Almost all cells used? Check. Queen found? No, of course not. I suck at finding her.

Queenie is on this frame somewhere. There are new eggs in the empty looking cells in the middle. Below and around that are capped brood cells. The cells at the top are honey cells capped with wax.

Btw, if I found multiple eggs in a single cell, in lots of cells, that is not great. That would tell me that the hive is probably queenless and the workers are laying eggs. But first I would see queen cells. Bigger, elongated wax cells that kinda look like you stuck a peanut shell to the comb. That would be a problem. Well, problem, but not like huge problem. The colony would be making a new queen on their own and that's pretty neat. If/when this happens, I will probably just let them do what they do and wait for a new queen to emerge. I'd know it happened because I would then start finding single eggs in cells again. But I wouldn't find the queen, because... yeah.

I continued checking the frames for any sign of any weirdness or trouble. Everything really does look good right now. I don't see any mites, one or two hive beetles, and lots of honey, pollen, and brood. All things I want to see.

Lots of honey on this frame. See the squiggly looking part at the right going to the top and bottom corners? That's all wax capped honey stores. HONEY! There's some older brood on this frame too.

We're getting close to the end of the nectar flow and a difficult time for bees. I'm feeding them syrup every day to help them build up their pantry for the winter. I have a trip coming up and I'll be gone for a week, and a few people have asked "who's going to feed your bees while you're gone!?" Here's the thing that's pretty neat about bees. I'm "feeding" them, but not really feeding them. Think of me as their grocery store. I fill the shelves for them with syrup and they come and shop. They take their goods back home and bring it to the kitchen to fill their little mason jars (honeycomb cells) and they leave it open for a while to dry out. When it's finished "cooking" it's honey, they say "oh, this one's ready" and they put the lid on for safe keeping. One by one, they fill and cap cells with honey for later use. When they're hungry, they poke the lid and have a bite. They also use it to feed the babies and the queen. They also do all of this with pollen (but I'm not supplying pollen. I could, I just don't need to right now. ) So. They're building up their pantry. When I'm gone on my trip, they'll have their little jars of honey and they'll be just fine. I'll open up the grocery store again when I get home.

Wait, if bees eat honey, why don't I just feed them real honey?

Well, a few reasons...

First and for obvious reasons, honey is WAY more expensive than sugar. But more importantly, you shouldn't feed bees honey unless it is honey from their own hive. When I get to the point that I can extract honey, if I have a lot, I can freeze entire frames of honey for them to use at a later time. But foreign honey could expose my bees to illness and disease. No thank you. Also, open, uncapped honey will attract other bees from other hives which would lead to robbing my hive's honey and resources, and fighting, killing, death, destruction, explosions. Wait, no, probably not explosions, but bad things. Very bad things. No thank you. It could also attract more pests or wildlife (like raccoons or bears) that would be more than happy to find my hive and tear it open. No. Thank. You. So. I feed with sugar syrup. And peace and harmony and tranquility remains. That's why.

So yeah, another inspection done and all is right in my little world of bees. I did tell you that I haven't gotten stung yet. But that doesn't mean my little bees are all lovey dovey and happy to see me. Oh no. I suit up when I do inspections because they get PISSED. They have stung my gloves several times. And every time they do I get a little sad because you didn't need to do that little bee and now you're going to die and I'm so so sorry I made you angry. I'm just doing my best here.

You probably know this, but a honey bee can only sting once. When they sting, their stinger is ripped out of their body, then they die. A stinging bee is a heroine, sacrificing herself for the good of her colony. Let's have a moment of silence for this brave little girl that stung my glove in her misguided but good intention to protect her family from the big meanie that is me.

RIP little honey bee. You fought a good fight (not really).

On a lighter note, here's a couple honeybee bridges because honeybee bridges are super cute. Look at them holding little hands/feet/beethings.

🐝