Wow. I would have never thought that those little bees would make me so nervous. Now I can see why they recommend that new beekeepers open the hive every week for a month, to get used to it!
I took another peek at my bees this past Sunday, around 6 PM or so. It was a nice day (perhaps in the 80’s) with a slight breeze. The sun was shining, although we (the Bees and I!) were in the shade at this time of the day (which is why I chose it.) The goal today was to locate the queens.
On Hive 1, which I had opened a lot last week, I immediately saw the queen through the top board. She was crawling around on one of the middle frames and then took a move to the inside. I decided not to bother these bees anymore (although, in retrospect, I think they were bothering me, which is the real reason I decided not to go further!) Regardless, since I had opened them last weekend and moved them about, I decided that this weekend’s goal was done.
On Hive 2, which I only glanced at last week (without removing any frames), I took her apart. Once, the bees appeared to be a bit agitated (they were eyeballing me from the top of one of the frames), so I hit them with my new smoker (which I lit for this examination.) They made a huge buzzing racket and then retreated back into the hive.
This gave me the time to begin taking the frames out. These bees were still mainly on the four frames that I had purchased. The outermost frame contained capped honey, nectar and pollen. The second one that I looked at had a TON of capped brood in it, but still no queen. Finally, on the next frame, I found the little beeotch. Of course, she immediately started crawling around on all of the most dangerous spots (where I could roll her when I put the frame back). There was a lot of capped brood here too, so all was good. I put the hive back together and we were done.
Mission accomplished in Week 2, although I need to give these hives a much better look next week. I want to know exactly what is on each and every frame so that I can start tracking it a bit better.
