Slowing down the robbers

   Hubby built an anti robbing screen for one of the hives last night. I think this is going to work. The bees come out of the entrance of the hive and into the screen at the bottom where the notch is cut out. They travel up and across to the notch at the top to leave the hive. The robber bees have not orientated to this situation because they have never had to use it to leave the hive. The bees that have left the hive, know to use the notch at the top to come and go. the robbers hang out at the bottom corner of the hive and try to get in.

   On the hive last night.

Robbers trying to get into the hive.

It worked so well, I made one for the nuc today.

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!

Bee mayhem

My bees got lost yesterday. Since the "big move", seriously 30 ft away, about half of the bees got lost. The last few days have been cool and stormy so there hasn't been much activity. But yesterday was warm and sunny. I was at a friends house and when I came home, there were thousands of bees flying around in the air where the hive used to be. I immediately geared up and grabbed the new empty hive. I placed it on the edge of the cloud of bees and they went right in to rest. Most of them eventually found their way back to the active hive, but a few hundred were too weak. I shook most of them back into the active hive, but still lost quite a few. The ground is littered with tiny striped carcasses this morning. There are still  a few that are crawling around trying to get the strength to fly, but I doubt they will make it. Weird how you get attached to a bug and will sit outside dribbling sugar water on them each individually to try and bring them around. I placed a branch in front of the entrance to the active hive so they have to orientate themselves when they leave. Hopefully this will help them find their way back home today.