Bee day

I was reducing the hives to get ready for winter (taking supers off for their more efficient winter acccomodation, which usually means taking honey off too.  However, Sunflower is the hive that split, and they did not have as much honey as I hoped.  I’m not entirely sure they have enough for themselves for the winter, and I debated bringing them down to one super, but I left them in two.

Pansy, the new hive, had the tidiest little house.  Just perfectly arranged, no burr comb.  Quite a bit of brood.  They’ve been systematically at work since being installed.

Nobody was excited about being sugared, and Sunflower had had it with me by the time I was almost done.  Thump thump thumpthumpthumpthumpthump  on my head.  I killed only one bee that I know of (right at the beginning of opening Pansy- I feel so bad whenever I kill a bee that was just busy going about her business).  I got a few stings.  They always sting the top of my thumbs (better than my fingertips), so now my hands look like they have a toothache. 

The one on the left hand started to run around her stinger, so I thought she was going to spin out, but then she chose to pull out her stinger. I wonder why they make that suicide call.  If it has to do with the skin they’re stuck in that they think they can’t detach from it (maybe my thumbs are tough),  or what.  I’m pretty good with the stings so that I don’t flinch and flick them off, but I do keep working.

It’s a bit late for this step, but I was sick and it’s been raining, and there’s a week of nice warm weather ahead (and a long warm fall, supposedly).  What is late is their bee syrup (it was raining!), and while I was cooking it, bees were coming in the house.  Let’s have it.  It’s about time.

I fancied that the corks were disappearing.  Something’s eating them!  They’re definitely disappearing.  What is gnawing on them?  Chipmunks, I presume.  Rotten thieves.