Bee drama or HOLY PSYCHO BEES, BATMAN!

^^Two phrases I never imagined myself saying^^

We picked up our two new hives last week and took them out to the ranch with the other hive we have out there. (I REALLY need to come up with names for these hives, it's getting confusing) We left them alone for a couple of days to settle in and then went out to check on them. We opened the hive and realized they were doing quite poorly. Brood patterns were really bad and they were just overall weak hives with little honey stored. We checked the original hive and went home. We ordered new queens for all three ranch hives because two of those queens were two and a half years old and none of the three were doing well.
   The queens arrived on the 13th and we happily went out to install our new girls. The purchased hives were pretty easy to deal with. We found the queens, picked them out of the hive and I stepped on them. The queens were all pipping at each other and that was really cool. I had heard that on youtube, but never in person. Amazing.
   We got to the original hive and realized something was different. We could NOT find the queen. We searched and searched and still never saw her. We saw some queen cells though and that was worrisome. I did not dare leave the new queen in case the hive went on the war path and killed her. I went back home and did some research. The queen cells we saw were emergency cells. Uh oh. That means we lost our queen at some point. I looked up the age of the larvae we had seen in the cells and determined that the hive had been queenless for about a week. Pretty much since the last time we were there. Uh oh. We must have either squished her by accident, or lost her somehow when we left the new hives. Good thing we already had a queen to install. I went out the next day and put her in her new home. The bees were surprisingly mellow. This had always been a fairly aggressive hive but I didn't even light my smoker.
   Fast forward three days and we go out to check the queens and turn them loose into the hive. We also got our new beesuits and were quite excited to try them out. I put mine on and then taped the one spot where a bee could get through, right on the neck. Hubby told me I was paranoid and a pansy. I told him I didn't care, I would rather not get stung, thank you very much. We started with the queenless hive and HOLY PSYCHO BEES, BATMAN!!! These bees went into attack mode right from the moment we walked up to the hive. They would not give you a friendly headbutt warning, they went straight for the jugular. Luckily the neck on MY suit was taped up. But my non paranoid, non pansy husband ended up with half a dozen bees inside his suit. One went up his nose while another sunk her stinger right into his adams apple.
   He sucked it up long enough to release the queen and we watched her disappear down into the hive like she was supposed to. We battled the workers long enough to make sure they didn't attack the attendant bees that came with the queen. There was a lot of butt wiggling and threats, but no one seemed overly pissed at them, just at us. We put the inner and outer covers back on the hive and retreated. They chased us quite a ways down the road and we finally got away from the determined little critters. We smoked our suits to mask the sting pheromones and braved the kamikaze insects one more time to fasten the straps around the hive. Whew, that was pretty intense.
   Now on to the new hives. These girls wanted new queens! They had almost eaten all of the candy in the queen cage and eagerly accepted the queens into the colony. They escorted her right down into the hive and never really even flew out of the hives. They were gentle enough that we could have removed our gloves and touched them. What a relief after dealing with those other attack bees!
   We are going to wait a week and then go back out and check on the hives to make sure the queens are ok and laying eggs. If that crazy hive has killed their queen, they are toast. I am tired of dealing with them and their attitudes. I will split them up and distribute the frames between the hives I bought to boost them and will start over with a new package of bees next year.

Ouch!

   We gave our new bees a couple of days to settle in and then decided we wanted to add a drone frame and go to a nine frame before they started building everything up. But first we had to work the first hive (I really need to name my queens or something. It would be much easier than saying the first hive or the second hive, or the nuc, or the other hive, ect.). We opened it up and they were MAD. 

    We lifted the medium super off and placed it on the ground. The bees had done something weird and when we removed the medium super, it opened dozens of cells exposing larvae that were almost ready to hatch. They were just laying there on top of the frames. 

   We smoked the bees like crazy because they were getting really aggressive at this point. Hubby got stung on the top of the hand. We took a frame of capped brood to give to the new hive and a frame of honey to make sure they would have plenty to eat. I brushed all of the bees off these two frames and walked them over to the new hive. Hubby got stung, once again on the back of the hand. (You see where this post is going, right?) 

   I went back to the big hive and added the drone frame and started spacing the frames out with my spacing tool. Hubby got stung....on the back of the hand. (In case you lost track, that's three stings in the same hand) I replaced the medium super and took one frame out that had comb, but no honey. Hubby got stung on his finger, opposite hand. While he was doing the bee dance and cursing, I spaced the medium frame and put the inner cover on. Hubby reminded me that we needed to add another medium super onto that hive and came to help. He got stung, again on the back of the hand. I yelled at him and told him to get into the house and take care of himself so I could finish up. He headed in cussing the whole way and shaking his hand. I quickly added the new super, put the inner and outer cover on and wandered over to the new hive.

   The new hive is smaller and at this point much gentler. I took out four untouched frames and replaced them with one frame with brood, one frame with honey and a drone frame. I then spaced them for a nine frame and found my queen. I added a medium super, because with all that I had given them, there were only two empty frames. I put on the covers and headed in to take a look at Hubby's hand. Oh dear heavens! He was already swelling.

I put everything I could think of on his hand and nothing stopped the swelling or the pain. By the next day, he looked like this:

We went to the Dr and he was given steroids and benadryl to take the swelling down. By the next day his hand looked like a hand instead of a rubber glove that had been blown up to entertain a child at the Dr's office!

Hive progress

My bees are getting feisty! I no more than opened the hive than one of them stung my little picture taker. So no pics of the frames or capped brood this time. I left the inner cover off and took care of the sting. I decided that maybe it was time to fire up the smoker. I got it put together and read the instructions. I got it let and went back outside. I didn't have time to let it really get smoking but it was enough to get done what I needed to do.

There was one frame that had just hatched and been cleaned ready for more brood or honey. There was one frame that was PERFECT! Capped honey at the top, pollen in the middle and capped brood in the bottom. Way to go girls! now if they would just quit messing around with that burr comb and draw out the rest of the frames. I am almost certain I won't have enough honey to harvest this year, I may even have to feed my bees through the winter.

I cut off all of the burr comb and put it in a container so I could take it in the house. I had a friend over who was thinking about getting a hive next year. I took her some of the honey filled comb to try. The first thing out of her mouth (once she had gotten around the sticky honey) was "It's WARM!" I gave her the first taste, I had not ever tried it.

I actually got a look at my queen today too, she was busy going from cell to cell laying eggs. I was pretty excited to see her, I knew she was there because I was finding brood, but I had not ever actually seen her after putting her in the hive for the first time.

I got the hive all cleaned up and put back together and took all of my gear off. I immediatly dug into the comb I had cut off and bit into the richest honey I have ever tasted! It was incredibly sweet. At lease twice as sweet as store bought honey.

There was more than that in the jar, but by the time I got around to taking a picture, I had eaten about half of it! My allergies had been kicking my butt all day, but now my head is clear and I feel pretty good! Local honey rocks!

(You can't tell I am excited, can you?)