Sorry for the hiatus...

Baby Bee kept me busy last year, as did a hot hive. My daughter grew, and her dad and I figured out parenthood as best we could to a good-natured child who ate a lot--about every 3 hours. Around the clock. That finally changed in January of this year, and I'm feeling far, far better, now that I get a good night's sleep nearly every night. For a while, typing a coherent sentence was an iffy proposition.

Back to beekeeping!

Last year, a hive that overwintered came into spring bursting with bees. The queen was a Buckfast, and I hadn't taken honey from them the previous year--after Avital was born at the end of June, there was just too much to do, and we didn't pull honey until October. By that time, the bees had moved honey from the supers into the brood chambers, and our temporary extracting area in the garage was so chill that getting the honey out of the comb was hard, even with heaters going full blast. So we got a measly 30 lbs or so.

The colony obviously didn't suffer from the previous summer's lack of attention. They didn't swarm, though I didn't have the time or inclination to prevent them, had they wanted to. I did manage to put a couple of medium supers on early, and at the time, they were a happy, gentle hive--just as they had been the previous summer.

As the summer of 2009 went on, that hive seemed to do well, while the other, a new package also with a Buckfast queen, was kind of dinky. They never really got their numbers up, and if I hadn't been busy with a one-year-old and the hot hive, I would have squished the queen and replaced her, or combined the colony. But the weather may have been partly at fault. The summer of 2009 was bad, simply bad. It was cool and rainy, and everyone at the bee club complained that they were getting no honey. Well, I was. I hefted those medium supers occasionally, and knew they were filling up. So I figured I had a great queen. Woo-hoo! Lucky me!

Or so I thought. Until, on a slightly sunny, far-from-perfect weekend day, I opened the booming hive. I really wanted to give them a thorough check, and Hubby was home to watch Baby Bee. The vagaries of our weather, combined with the need for childcare meant that I hadn't looked into the hive in quite a while. Puff of smoke at the entrance, puff of smoke under the hood... Open her up, and... five bees come out like fighter pilots with the enemy in their sights. All of them tag my right hand, the one holding the smoker. One right after another, they drop their payload and go on to their reward. I, of course, do not wear gloves. That day, I was glad I wore my veil--something I haven't always done in the past.

I closed the hive up and walked around to the back of the house, where Hubby and Baby Bee were playing in the not-really-sunshine. I lamented that the overcast, coolish weather had put my girls in a foul mood, and five had died for the cause. I looked down at my right hand. The knuckles were barely swollen. I have a pretty high tolerance for bee venom (apparently a natural advantage, since I've never reacted much to honey bee stings), but even my system notices five in the same place.

A couple of weeks later, the weather was perfect: 80s, sunny, just what the beekeeper ordered for a trouble-free inspection. I opened the same hive again, after dousing it liberally with smoke, and was promptly met by bees pinging off my veil and heading for my smoker hand again. I didn't persist for long. I smoked them down, put on the lid, and got well away from the hive before I took my veil and jacket combo off. One or two followed me for 30 yards or so--unheard of behavior in my experience. Of course, in my few years of beekeeping, I'd never had a hot hive. But I had to face the fact: now I did.

Back when I had ten acres in the middle of even more unpopulated acres, the hot hive would have been a problem, but only for me and passing wildlife incautious enough to poke their nose in the hive. Now, in the 'burbs, with neighbors (though not close neighbors) and a walkway 30 yards from the hive, and a soon-to-be-toddler scooting all over the place, I had a potential problem.

I let them settle down, donned my jacket again, and checked the front of the hive, looking for signs of a skunk or other animal that might be irritating the hive. Nope. The bees were completely uninterested in me, as long as I was just near the hive. Only when I opened it did they go ballistic. That was some comfort, anyway.

Baby Bee is up from her nap. More later!