The Second Evening With The Bees.

This evening lovely Alex came round to show us how to feed the bees. I could hardly wait as this was to be the first opportunity to see inside the hive. I climbed into my bee keepers suit with the secret hope that i'd look like Agnetha in Abba arrival.

I

In practice of course, since the lady who gave me the suit is slim and petite and I am better described as buxom the effect was rather more 

However. Back to the bees.

Alex showed us how to light the smoker. He has worked out that the gentle method of coaxing smoke from wood shavings with a match is, in practice, pretty tedious. So he's perfected the blow torch option. A nice piece of dry, slightly rotted wood in the can is easily lit with a roaring blow torch. The same blow torch is also useful for sterilizing the hive and getting rid of mites if necessary. However I digress.

We zipped up the fencing style visors of our bee keeping suits and Alex wafted a little smoke into the hive. I always thought the smoke made them sleepy but actually the smoke makes the bees fear that there is a forest fire so they busy themselves gorging on honey so they have the energy to fly away. However once the smoke blows away they are full of honey and it is this that makes them docile. I've looked into this and have a feeling it's a rather stressfull way of pacifying the bees so when i've a better idea what i'm doing I hope to try a method where you spray a little diluted honey mixed with water using an atomiser. Apparently the bees then groom one another which turns their attention away from you taking the lid of their house.

We removed the lid and poured the sugar syrup into the feeder. We did it slowly so the bees in the feeder cone would not get unexpectedly and fatally submerged. Then we lifted the super containing the feeder off to have a look inside the brood box at the colony.

Healthy busy but freindly and relaxed bees came to look at the top of the hive which gave us the perfect opportunity to treat them for Varoa, the parasitic mite which is killing off hives where hygiene is a little off.

Alex tore the corner off the sachet of BeeVital an organic Varoa treatment that many local bee keepers prefer. Some use oxalic acid. It's effective but very agressive on the bees. I prefer to stick with the organic option.

We decided not to inspect the hive too closely on this occasion as the colony has had a lot of upheaval in the last 24 hours. Moved 3 miles, relocated in a new place, a rain storm that battered the hive, varoa treatment and new people to meet. So we put the hive back together, made sure none of the bees were trapped in the lid and said goodnight.