Adventures in Beekeeping: Piling on the honey

Two weekends ago, I actually went inside the Warre hive. The hive is healthy, vibrant and really didn’t pay too much attention to me. This time around, I did something I normally don’t do.

I actually pulled off the first box (filled with comb I might add) and got a closer look at the second box. All I can say is those honeybees are hard workers. Many of the bars were filled with honeycomb! I marveled at how industrious the honeybees were. That excitement brought on some unexpected clumsiness. Can I just say that, I’m hardly ever clumsy, even under pressure. I bumped a bar as I was putting it back inside the Warre hive box. The honeybees immediately let me know they weren’t thrilled about that and rose up in a tiny cloud, only to drop back down inside after realizing I wasn’t a threat… I guess?

So I went to close up the hive and made another mistake. Instead of sliding the box along the length of  the box below I placed it down even with the box below.  Here’s the problem, when you do that the honeybees don’t have a chance to move out of the way and will get crushed if they happen to be along the edge. I thought I had made sure all the honeybees were out of the way, but there were a few stragglers. I crushed about six honeybees. 🙁

When you slide the box along the length of the box below, you give the honeybees a chance to get out of the way.  That’s how I’ve been doing it when checking on them in the past. I could kick myself for doing it the wrong way. I felt awful, in fact I still do. I learned an important lesson, stay alert when interacting with the honeybees.

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Jennifer

Sorry to hear you lost 6 Bees! But I can understand how that would happen! I still think you are doing awesome at it!
Jennifer recently posted..Homemade Sauces and Such