I have always heard that bees are gentle. Well, not in the same way a dog is when they are curled up in your lap, but in the way that a honey bee just doesn’t care that you’re around. Note the “honey” modifier – other kinds of bees are not so kind. Honey bees are too focused to care. As long as you’re not in their way of raising their young or making honey, you’re as interesting as a flag pole.

What I have begun to see is, that I can get within five feet of their hive and watch them without any protective clothing. Sometimes a bee buzzes around me after a few minutes warning me to back off, but in general, I can get close enough to watch them unaided by my full bee suit a.k.a. body armor.

This starts to explain why I see beekeepers not using gloves. These gutsy people go in with just a veil over their faces. No gloves, no fully body suit, not even a smoker. These are the true pros, and I am not there yet. But watching how calm the bees are, I can see how it’s possible.

Now if only I could get them to be that calm when I take apart their house…

I removed the inner cover, exposing the frames today. The bees were not amused, and I had a few moments where I had to remind myself that I was safe in my suit. I used my hive tool and moved a few frames a bit so I could see inside them better, but didn’t remove any from the hive for a full inspection. There were certainly a lot of bees in there, and they were busy making a mess as some of the frames made been cross-connected at the top with comb.

My point in doing a partial inspection today was to make sure all was well. While on this sunny day there are bees coming and going with pollen, I am worried that the hive doesn’t seem under full production. What I expect to see is at least 10 bees buzzing around the front of the hive, and bees entering and leaving the hive every second or so. Now let’s be clear, most of these expectations come from watching YouTube videos of active hives, and you can’t believe what you see on TV so… I may have completely false expectations.

My main worry is that my bees look “damp”. They are darker in color than I expected, and have a faint shine to them, almost like they are made of plastic. As I have read many issues with hives being too humid and bees dying, I really wanted to get a good look at them today. As long as they are happy, I don’t care what they look like – I’m just a nervous newbie beek.

What I saw was the original frames from the nuc were still that dark, almost wet color, and were covered in bees. The new frames I had put in the box to complete the 8 frame were untouched, giving me confidence that no swarming would take place any time soon. They also were so untouched that they didn’t look wet or show any signs of humidity – another good sign. Also, while there were only a few bees leaving/arriving on the entrance before I removed the inner cover, as soon as I removed it, and therefore exposed the frames, a few hundred bees emerged on the top of the frames, and at least 50 took flight, many trying to sting me as their intruder. Again, a good sign that they were healthy and can protect themselves.

As an added measure, I removed the entrance reducer, essentially a piece of wood with a small cut that when in place, reduces the opening that bees can use to leave/arrive at the hive. This is often put in place when the hive is new, as it’s a smaller entrance for them to defend from other robber bees. The downside of using one is that the bees can’t early come and go from the hive, and there isn’t as much air flow. So today I removed it so that they have a wide opening (about five times to size) to go about their business.

[Update] Without the entrance reducer the bees are buzzing around the entrance hours after I have been there. At any moment there are five or so arriving/leaving and there are 20 or so around the entrance with another 10 or so in flight around the hive. In short, they are a busy as bees – wahoo!

There’s an article in the New York TImes today about the increase in swarms in NYC. Looks like they are attributing it to a warm winter that caused colony build-ups (this is a good thing – right?), and then first time beekeepers that don’t give the proper room in the hive for their bees to grow.

Note to self: Check my hive after lunch, and make sure it has room to grow.

We’ve been having fairly sunny days (each of my posts now has local weather conditions listed at the time of the post), and the bees haven’t been taking much syrup. If this is because they don’t need it, and they are just self-regulating, this is a perfect world. I hope this is the case, as I don’t want to do a full inspection for another three days, but the not-knowing is trying me nuts. I badly want this hive to be strong and healthy this summer so it will over-winter well.

I checked the hive yesterday afternoon and early this morning, and about every 10 seconds a worker bee would return with full of orange or white pollen. Occasionally I was seeing some yellow as well. This weekend I’ll open up the hive and check to see if they have started to fill out the three new frames I put in on Wed. Since it has small cell wax foundation in it, I’m hoping they’ll get right to it. If those frames are being worked on, I’ll add on a medium super on top with wax foundation as well. Gotta give them room for expansion this summer.

I’ve only had the bees for 24hrs, and I’m already getting sloppy. Thankfully this is with my clothing, and not with the bees themselves.

I went to check on the bees a few minutes ago, and donned my shoes (no socks or rubber bands around my ankles), and pulled over a jacket and veil. Once at the hive, I quickly inspected the feeding jar and returned to the garage where I pulled off my jacket and veil, and went into the house.

As I sat at my laptop, checking for email, I heard a fly buzzing around. A rather loud, persistent fly. While I couldn’t see it as a looked around, this was a really loud fly, and was surprised I couldn’t see it – it had to be huge.

And then it struck me. I had a bee in my pants.

You never know how fast you can get naked until you have a bee in your pants. With unprecedented athlete grace, I pulled off my shirt and pants simultaneously and flung them out the back door, all the time hearing the buzzing getting louder. She was pissed, and I couldn’t blame her. She was trapped in a blue-jean prison, and wanted to make a break for it.

As I stood in my living room, looking a my crumpled pants on the deck, I just had to laugh. My 24hrs as a beekeeper, and I had already let a bee into my pants. I had escaped what would have been a nasty bee sting, but it taught me a lesson.

The few seconds you save by not securing your pants are not worth standing naked in your living room.

My parental instincts, or just plain curiosity took over, so I removed the feeder so I could see down the top slot and see if there were still bees, or really so that I could see there were bees that were alive, having feared I had drowned them. And of course, they are fine. From the fuzzy picture, you can see they are certainly alive (yes, they all were moving, and were drinking the syrup. They jar was down about 1/3 of the way, which says to me it that it must be working. And certainly with 2/3 left in the jar after about 24hrs, I have not drowned them.

I also saw about 10 crawling around the entrance once I had removed the top. My guess is there are guard bees looking to see what all the fuss was about.

It’s still a cloudy day, but I don’t see a single bee outside the hive a 7:30am, a few hours after dawn. It’s not raining, but it’s certainly not a bright “beach day”. I checked their feeder, and with just a rough measurement, it doesn’t look like they have been drinking it. I’m a little worried, but I will check by by noon. Tomorrow looks to be their first sunny day here. Hopefully that will get them out and flying.

Note to self: Next time, mark the feeder level with a bit of masking tape each time I check it’s level, or write down the level from the hash marks in the glass. Guessing on what they are eating it a good way of knowing nothing.

Yes, I know the top is crooked

About 30 minutes after installing the hive, I got the feeder installed on the top board, and put an extra super around it so that the top could go back on the hive.  The feeder is just a “2 cup” Mason jar filled with 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar, with a few holes punched in the lid, turn upside down. This provides an easy gravity fed dispenser since the vacuum from the existing syrup keeps it from rapidly leaking into the hive and drowning them in their own food.

Considering I am trying to be a “hands-off organic beekeeper”, feeding them sugar is a a little strange, but here is my logic. Remember this is not a full hive, but a “nuc”, which is really a baby colony. Yes, it has a laying queen, workers, drones and even honey, but it’s only five frames of an 8 frame single super, and is actually less than half the size it should be by this time of the year. It’s also just had its world rocked with a new hive body, new location (about 90 miles from their home), new fauna, and even a new sun orientation. If they are not confused, they should be. The syrup is there to give them a little extra food and energy while they get themselves situated over the next 48 hours. Once they start foraging for food, their interest in the sugar will wane, and I’ll  remove it for the summer. I may add it back in the late fall to give them an extra boost for the winter, but I’ll make that call when I get there.

After a thankfully uneventful drive down from Boston, I quickly set up a camera and got the hive mounted on its stand near the opposite end of the property from our house. I think the slightly rainy day helped, as the bees were calm considering they had just been moved into a new house, and a new location. I wish I could know what they were thinking…

“WTF happened? I hear a highway – wait, no, that’s the ocean. I smell new bushes. Where’s my favorite flower I’m used to dinning on? Why does this new bush taste salty? Hey, who moved the sun to a new location?”