17 May 2010
First hive inspection
That's a close-up of the queen cage with a few bees hanging out all over it. (Bigger version.) This was taken after we shook off most of the bees that were clinging to it when we first pulled it out.
Beekeeping is amazing. Thrilling, relaxing, and meditative, all at once. Immensely satisfying. I end up covered with the smell of smoke and sugar syrup together. It's like firespinning and working with liquid nitrogen all rolled up into one. Focus, sublime focus, and a dangerous pleasure that only works if you can enter a state of smooth calm when working with it.
This is my setup:
The box on the ground in front of the hive was the package. We've since fully cleared it of live bees and thrown it away. It looks like most of the bees that remained there after we left last time did manage to find their way into the hive without freezing to death. Phew!
We opened up the hive and pulled out a few frames, hanging them on this useful doohicky with two arms that hooks onto the edge of the hive when it's open. The bees didn't seem to mind at all. This let us pull out the queen cage to examine it.
The queen and her attendants were still trapped inside the cage by the sugar plug, which was only partially eaten away. She looked fine. The other bees were totally covering the cage, but they didn't seem hostile, just interested - I don't think she's in much danger of being balled. (When a colony rejects a foreign queen, they kill her by surrounding her as a group and overheating her to death.)
I poked a wider hole all the way through the sugar plug with a screw - not wide enough for the queen to get out, but surely enough to really help inspire them to finish the job. If they haven't released her when I check back in a few more days, I'm probably just going to do it manually. They'll have had a week to get used to her scent, and they don't seem to be acting aggressively towards her, so it should be fine.
Those little glints of golden light in the air in front of her? Yeah, those are bees.
That's it for now. The bees have started building some comb, and they seem to be doing well. Anderson has been emailing me to reassure me that they haven't suddenly disappeared. I'll try to get some better photos of their progress next time! They are gorgeous.