[Elfsea] Got bees

Richard Threlkeld rjt at softwareinnovation.com
Sat Mar 22 22:15:56 PDT 2014


Tonight was even more exciting than I expected. We went to get two hives of bees from our mentor who has about 15 hives at the location. But his bench for three of them had legs on one side collapse. So we had to reset them amid the upset bees.

We also opened up all the hives and checked them out to see which ones we might want. One we chose had more boxes on it than the owner wanted to sell, so we had to remove the box, shake the bees off of each frame back into the hive, and move the brood and honey frames from the box to another hive that was less well off. I got stung on the wrist because I was not using putting on the gloves properly (fixed and remembered). Got a bee inside my veil because I did not run the zipper all the way to the top. Got it out without a sting. Pryo got one in hers (for the same reason I believe) and it *did* sting her.

We prepped the hives we decided to take and then went to dinner in a hole in the wall Italian place nearby that was really good while all the bees came home. They are not nocturnal. When we went back we plugged the last holes and moved the hives. Unfortunately, one apparently has a tear in the screen bottom and bees got out. Got stung twice more on the ankle because I did not wear the right shoes and the suit wore up above my shoes (and the bees did not like having their hive moved).

Got them in the pickup truck and made it home. Went inside to get the right boots, zipped everything up properly, put the gloves on properly, and installed the bees in their new home. They were still getting out of the bottom, but we were properly clothed and did not have any problems. Opened the hives and they are getting used the the surroundings for 3 days before we open them up again for maintenance.

Most of the time, if you are gentle with them, you can open the hives, check things out, and do it without a suit. I won't be doing that anytime soon if ever! Our Mentor has been doing this since 1977 and he always wears this suit.

Anyway, mead will be the result of this.

Caelin on Andrede
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ansteorra.org/pipermail/elfsea-ansteorra.org/attachments/20140323/1133d002/attachment-0008.htm>


More information about the Elfsea mailing list