(Mis)Adventures in Beekeeping Part II

When I was 36 hours into Normy's labor and asking to be taken to the hospital for my epidural Smoochy told me, "Just because this is harder than you think it is doesn't mean you can't do it." Those words changed my life, and have become a mantra I repeat to myself when things gets sticky. When I went on to push my son triumphantly into the world 8 hours later I knew what Smoochy had told me was true. Now I believe I can accomplish ANYTHING with enough stamina and hard work... But, I have been repeating the mantra a lot this week.


I wanted Part II of my beekeeping adventure tale to be a cheerful retelling of the day I hived the bees along with a status update of their life in the hive that featured sunshine, rainbows, and of course the promise of honey. Instead the news from Becca's Sunshine Apiary is slightly more realistic, a whole lot more humble, and a little bit grim. The girls aren't doing so well. And really, most of it is my fault.


I have to go back to the moment just before I vigorously shook my first three pounds of bees in to their new home. Well, that was what was SUPPOSED to happen anyway. The reality was more like I just shook them around in the box. When they finally got their bearings they flew out and started sticking their stingers into the jackass who had just treated them like a can of new paint in a mixing machine. Actually, I wasn't the only one.  Smoochy took a hit in the dead center of the back of his neck, but he got some great pictures.  I wasn't expecting to get stung. I had seen all these YouTube videos of these beekeepers with neither gloves nor veil deftly introducing bees to their hive with the calm of a Zen Master sitting on a mountain. Let's just say I had unrealistic expectations. I'm sure I let loose a high-pitched Oooooooh-Nooo! the first few stingers to pierce through my skin-tight jeans and billowy white blouse. But, I held it together and as quickly as humanly possible set up shop. I was suddenly a lot more grateful that Smoochy caught that my fly was down BEFORE I attempted to hive the girls. The trouble was there was still one more package to do.

The bees circled my head madly, and followed me over the few feet to stand in front of the second hive that still needed to be dealt with. I don't know if any of you have ever experienced having your nipples pierced, but I'm here to tell you that the second one is a lot worse than the first because you know what's coming. Plus, you also know there is no way to get out of it without looking really really silly...

Here I am getting the crap stung out of me.

So, I muddled through. I was so shaken from the first incident that I attached my queen cage horribly to the bar. This forced me to leave out the second bar that should have snuggly fit next to the one the cage was suspended from. This also left a huge gap to the outside world and the cold rainy April elements were able to blast right in on my poor bees. But, I wanted to get out of there so badly that I didn't take time to think about what I could have done to fix it. As it was, I had to walk around our property forever to finally get the angry mob of bees to quit chasing me... or die on me with their stingers ripped from their butts.


It wasn't until after I had slurped down a rum and coke and had a moment to reflect that I realized I had made another bone-head move. Instead of putting the queen in the center of the hive body with plenty of room for the bees to cluster around her cage and keep her warm, I had suspended her from the bar closest to the entrance. Frick. Not good.

This was the properly attached queen cage. The second was a little wonky! Smoochy took this shot right before I banged, shook, and dumped the first package. I remember feeling confident and exhilarated. Hope to get that feeling back soon...

Then, to add to the problem, it was cold and rainy, and cold and rainy, and cold and rainy for days on end. Not good weather for bees.


Three days later I finally went out to check on the girls and made yet another horrible discovery. The bottom of the hive was constructed with two different sheets of farmers cloth layered over each other. The inside sheet (the first we installed) had bigger holes. Turns out those holes are too big to keep out pests (like small hive beetles and wax moths). Instead of ripping that sheet off and starting again, we just layered the cloth with smaller holes over it from the bottom. I never could have imagined that the bees would try to crawl through the bigger holes in the first layer of cloth and get trapped by the second. But they did. My heart sank and my stomach hurt when I saw the layer of dead bees sandwiched between the two sheets. 


I have to say, at this point I was a little shaken. I got on the phone with the main organizer and chairman of the Omaha Bee Club, bee doctor, and bee-friendly pest management guru, Tony Sandoval, AKA Big Bear. This guys rocks. I think he could sense the fear and distress in my voice when he talked with me about what I was going to need to do to start fixing the situation out at my hives. I had never even lit my smoker before, and after my fist run-in with angry bees I was a little too on the scared-shittless side to go out there and start messing around. Tony offered to come over right then and help me open things up and take a look around. My hero. He told me, "That's what the Bee Club is all about. Bee people helping bee people." 


Having someone that experienced come over and walk me through opening up the hives was just what I needed. When we got out there all was not lost. There were lots of dead bees, sure. But, lots of alive ones too, all clustered together to keep warm. Tony helped me move the queen cage of the first hive over where it needed to be. On the second hive (the one with the wonkily attached cage) we discovered that the queen had been released, so we could close that one back up tighter than I had left it initially and things were good. It was a huge sigh of relief to be out there and not get stung, and to see Tony work without any protective gear at all and not get stung either. But, the best part of the experience was observing the slow, gentle, and steady way he manipulated the bars and the bees. It was masterful and I learned so much. 


Since then I have been out to visit a friend's bees once and my own just last Sunday. I have a residual phobia of getting stung that I really need to work through. I'm seriously considering buying a full bee suit, because a calm confident beekeeper will always be more successful than a spastic freaked-out one.  But, the adventure has begun. I'm not sure how this first chapter will end. Frankly, I don't think my hives are very healthy right now, but I'll save that story for next time. The thing is: I'm in it to win it, so to speak. I am not giving up. Even if these hives crash and burn (poor tortured bees!) I will start again and take everything I've learned from this experience and do better next time. 


The good new is, there are defiantly bees in both my boxes. I was just out there watching the field bees come and go which was a promising sight.  I'm not sure that they have queens, or are building comb... but they are out there and working the yard. On Easter while we were out egg hunting I saw quite a few girls I'm sure were mine. ;-) We have been seeing honey bees in the creeping charlie on our property and the last time I opened the hives up I saw bees with lovely bright yellow clumps suck to their hind legs... in their pollen baskets! Life goes on.