First inspection and Jargon Busting.

Today the weather is beautiful the sun is out and pretty white clouds are scudding about looking autumnal. This is my favourite time of year, when it's still pretty warm and the leaves are changing on the trees and berries are setting on the trees so the birds have something for winter. September 22nd was the autumnal equinox. The days are shortening and it will not be long before things become a little colder. So today Alex came to show me how to inspect the hive. 

He arrived on his bike with his bee keeping paraphernalia in panniers and a stack of short wooden boards attached to his rack. "Karina has send you a new super-I can show you how to put it together."

Now it is astonishing how quickly you find yourself slipping into the lingo. There is, I find, a slight danger of wanting not to look stupid and nodding and smiling pretending you know what's going on when in fact you have NO IDEA what the hell they're talking about. So a bit of jargon busting first.

We have a National Hive. 

It's a nice simple pine box with  frames hung inside from the top. This first part where the bees live and breed and build stores of honey and pollen in neat hexagonal beeswax combs is called the Brood Box. On top of this is a board with some small holes in so the bees can move up into another half size box. In honey season this half size box contains more frames for bees to build honey stores. This box, being on top of the brood box is called a Super! If the colony is prolific and the season abundant you can have a number of supers on top of the brood box. In the autumn as the colony is winding down the combs of honey in the supers are removed and a feeder is placed on top of the main hole so that the bees can take advantage of the extra feed you supply. On top of this goes the roof. The roof helps keep the rain and predators out and warmth and bees in!

Enough jargon busting and on with the bees.

We used smoke this time to quieten the hive. Despite my misgivings I have not had enough experience to deviate from the excellent advice I'm getting from this lovely beekeeper. I'm very glad we did. Taking the roof off everything was quiet. There were a few bees in the cone of the feeder and a few more flying round than when we feed in the evening but things were fairly good natured. So we took the super off. As this is basically just a square of wood that just left the crown board between us and the bees. 

Even though it was only a week since the last inspection the crown board was really well stuck down with propolis. We used Alex's hive tool to lever the crown board off the top of the brood box. This requires a side to side twisting motion rather than a jemmying motion. This is so you don't do any damage to the hive while separating the elements.

This achieved the sheer volume of buzzing really took me aback but even when we had the  hive exposed the bees were pretty much unbothered but without anything between us and the insects the sheer numbers made an intense sound. It was only when we started to lift the frames out that the bees seemed to show any concern. Alex lifted the first which was apparently full of honey. He shook some of the bees back into the hive so that we could look more clearly and you could see concentric circles of honey with occasional cups of pollen. Some of the pollen cups were yellow and some bright orange. You could see the same on the pollen baskets on the bees legs. Apparently they sort the pollen grains so that each type has it's own store. I wonder if they do the same with nectar so that each cup has a particular type of honey. 

We looked through each frame some of which were more full than others. Only the frames in the centre of the hive had brood left in them. There were nurse bees looking after them and some of them fell outside the hive. I was worried that since they're flightless they might not get back but it seems that as long as they are in walking distance they are fine. There were no drones (male bees) left in the hive. Since queens have no breeding needs at this time of year they don't lay any drones. The sheer economy of the bee life cycle is a thing of wonder.

Finally I realised that I had to pick up a frame myself. I wasn't frightened but I was nervous of hurting or trapping a bee in my ham fisted attempt to inspect a frame. So I took the hive tool, loosened the frame and tentatively lifted the frame out of the brood box. The first thing that struck me was the weight of the frame. Apparently even on one of the part full brood box frames there are as much as 3 or four jars full of honey. Even with an area of brood in the middle of the comb!

While I was holding the frame I realised a deeply unhappy bee was reversing up my thumb with her stinger out. I couldnt put the frame down quickly because I would have trapped lots of bees so I had to watch while she thrust her sting through my Marigold (british brand of rubber gloves). It only grazed my thumb and the venom sac was left int he glove. So sadly the poor girl died for nothing. When a bee stings you she cannot withdraw her stinger so in pulling away she rips it from her body and as a result will die. It is not a sacrifice that the bee makes lightly. I was able to remove the stinger from the glove without more than a little discomfort but the poor bee wasn't. 

One of the frames looked slightly damaged so we marked it for replacement in spring and returned it. Alex cleaned off excess wax and propolis and left the hive looking cleaner and fresher than when we opened it.

On this occasion we didn't see the queen. Apparently queens are adept at hiding from the paparazzi. Perhaps princesses and starlets could take a leaf out of their book!

You are never going to get a center spread in HELLO! magazine from a queen bee!

TTFN

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