Keep calm and ...

It's Saturday, inspection day.

I debated on whether I should inspect today or not. The bees have been kinda pissy lately, forcing me to put my bee jacket and veil on just to replace their jar of sugar syrup. Ugh, what's WITH you girls? I figure it's the approaching storm, that big fat ugly-face Hurricane Dorian, although it's still miles and miles away from North Florida. But I dunno, maybe bees are like super sensitive to barometric pressure and they're not happy about it. Other local beekeepers have reported the same thing. Everyone hates hurricane prep, even honeybees. Next week we expect lots of rain, and next Saturday, I'll be boarding a Disney Cruise ship and will be gone for a week. So ok fine, inspection today.

You know how last week I told you all about how I'm looking for eggs which tells me that my queen is there and doing her thing and everything is cool? Yeah, well guess what. You're right if you said I didn't find the queen because you guessed it, I suck at finding her. I didn't. But also, I did not find any eggs today. I. DID. NOT. FIND. ANY. EGGS. TODAY!!!!!

[I am not panicking. I am not panicking. I AM NOT PANICKING.]

So I might be panicking a little bit. Truth is, maybe I just didn't see them. [That's it, I just didn't see them because I'm really new and by no means an expert.] It's a distinct possibility and I'm hanging my hat on that for now because I'm trying not to panic. [LOL there is no reason to panic.]

But my hive could in fact [no, no way] be queenless. From everything is awesome to everything is not awesome in a week. She was 100% definitely positively there last Saturday, and the most likely reason for a new hive with a young queen to go from queenright to queenless in 7 days is that [don't say it].. I... I... maybe accidentally [please don't say it] squished her. [you said it.] OMG. Kill me.

If this is true and I have accidentally committed an assassination, [nah, nope, I just didn't see the eggs] I need to act fast, and this is an absolutely terrible time for this to happen. A hurricane is going to swing by our state bringing lots and lots of bee-unfriendly weather. And then I'm getting out of this place for a lovely week long Caribbean cruise. [How can you go on vacation when your bees are in jeopardy?]

I don't know what to do right now. Last week I told you about how cool it is that a colony can make another queen. [Cool but like I really didn't want to experience this so soon. I'm not ready!] That's totally true, but it's also not 100% guaranteed. And the longer my hive is queenless, the closer it will get to complete collapse. Like in a month I could have no bees. Maybe I just didn't see the eggs. But that freakin voice inside my head is also saying [that would totally explain why they've been pissy lately. Ugh, would you just SHUT UP. EVERYTHING IS FINE.]

*deep breath* I'm going to look again tomorrow.

So I'm just going to keep calm and .... scream and cry internally. Everything is fine.