A friend came to dinner on Thursday evening. We sat out on deckchairs in the evening warmth and contemplated sipping champagne. I had to ask though, if she would mind me doing some beekeeping before we started drinking ...
Because it was hot, and relatively still, and the weather forecast has been predicting a cooler spell, I knew it had to be Thursday night.
She was happy to watch, and help where she could. So I togged up and went to have a look.
I didn't hold out much hope. I go down to the hive every evening with the cats, but I just feel sad when I look at it. It's mid-summer and it should be humming with activity, bursting with bees carrying pollen, wafting smells of honey, bulging at the seams. But it's not. I've felt like it's dying and it's all my fault.
But it was such a perfect beekeeping evening, you see, that I just had to go for a look.
Each time I go in there now, I can feel that I am becoming more and more gentle and careful in my handling; I feel so responsible for these creatures and so aware that the direness of their situation is because of my ignorance and poor handling.
The numbers were very, very low in there, and I could see straight away the bees were clustering around frames 4 and 5, very tight and close together. Nevertheless I started from Frame 1 and worked through each frame, quickly and with as little disruption as possible.
And it was on Frame 4 that I spotted what I never thought I'd see again - brood. Sealed brood. I just felt so disbelieving I had to use my tool to scrape the top off one to prove it to myself. Yes, baby bees in there.
There were three things that worried me:
1. So little of it - spread only over quarter of two adjoining frames. Why? Is it possible that She's only laying limited quantities because there are so few house bees left to look after the babies when they're born? She has to lay limited quantities to start off the hive again, building slowly over a season?
2. The brood I saw was sealed, with only a few fat white larvae at 7 days old. There were no 3-day brand new rice grain eggs. No recent sign of the Queen.
3. There were so few bees, I should've been able to see the Queen. But I didn't, though I looked and looked.
Where is She?
I replaced everything carefully, stripped off my suit, and retired to the deckchair in the sun to share a glass of champagne with Foxxxy. We toasted the advent of the baby bees, and I was happy.
But I am too uncertain to show Joy Unconfined. I do not know where She is, and also, more than anything I wonder - can She do enough to have them ready and strong to survive the Winter?
Because it was hot, and relatively still, and the weather forecast has been predicting a cooler spell, I knew it had to be Thursday night.
She was happy to watch, and help where she could. So I togged up and went to have a look.
I didn't hold out much hope. I go down to the hive every evening with the cats, but I just feel sad when I look at it. It's mid-summer and it should be humming with activity, bursting with bees carrying pollen, wafting smells of honey, bulging at the seams. But it's not. I've felt like it's dying and it's all my fault.
But it was such a perfect beekeeping evening, you see, that I just had to go for a look.
Each time I go in there now, I can feel that I am becoming more and more gentle and careful in my handling; I feel so responsible for these creatures and so aware that the direness of their situation is because of my ignorance and poor handling.
The numbers were very, very low in there, and I could see straight away the bees were clustering around frames 4 and 5, very tight and close together. Nevertheless I started from Frame 1 and worked through each frame, quickly and with as little disruption as possible.
And it was on Frame 4 that I spotted what I never thought I'd see again - brood. Sealed brood. I just felt so disbelieving I had to use my tool to scrape the top off one to prove it to myself. Yes, baby bees in there.
There were three things that worried me:
1. So little of it - spread only over quarter of two adjoining frames. Why? Is it possible that She's only laying limited quantities because there are so few house bees left to look after the babies when they're born? She has to lay limited quantities to start off the hive again, building slowly over a season?
2. The brood I saw was sealed, with only a few fat white larvae at 7 days old. There were no 3-day brand new rice grain eggs. No recent sign of the Queen.
3. There were so few bees, I should've been able to see the Queen. But I didn't, though I looked and looked.
Where is She?
I replaced everything carefully, stripped off my suit, and retired to the deckchair in the sun to share a glass of champagne with Foxxxy. We toasted the advent of the baby bees, and I was happy.
But I am too uncertain to show Joy Unconfined. I do not know where She is, and also, more than anything I wonder - can She do enough to have them ready and strong to survive the Winter?
