Late Developer

It's 10 degrees in the shade, and 20 degrees in the sun; I've taken to curling up in a chair at the end of the garden, right next to the beehive, and soaking up the sunshine when it deigns to appear. For a long while now, I've noticed a large number of dead bees lying on the ground in front of the hive. I also noticed several bees had died in the progress of very messy, very yellow cleansing flights - could this possibly indicate diarrhea? I hope not. How awfully sad :(

This weekend Guy and I went on a long round-the-houses shopping expedition to Park Beekeeping in Greenwich, who never appeared to be off the phone long enough for me to get a call in. We arrived at a tiny, closed-looking industrial unit and met Gordon, who mournfully told us it would be a minimum two-week wait for a new National hive. "Never," he said "never have I known such an upsurge in interest in beekeeping. I just can't keep up with the demand."

Good for bees, bad for me. My planning has been abysmal. While the other NewBees in our first-season beekeepers' circle were sorted enough to order their new hives at Christmas, I've been floating about like the proverbial short-visioned grasshopper. Ah, well! I'll catch up, I always do. After all, I've always been a late developer.

Guy has been wonderful in terms of making a new, rather fancy-looking base for the existing beehive, and he found the perfect piece of pavement to support it on the level underneath. So I bought him a beesuit, and yesterday he had the first opportunity to try it out. It was such a joy to go down to the hive with him; beekeepers together.

We squabbled amiably about exactly how we were going to do it, then gently and ever-so-carefully just got on with it. We moved the hive about two feet away, and laid down the pavement tile, then positioned the base carefully on top of it and slid the hive back in position. It looks very posh now. Complete.

While we were doing this, the weather started to clear and warm up. I had thought it would be too cold to check inside the hive, but I looked at the suddenly-blue sky and decided to take my chance. That Blasted Smoker is no longer That Blasted Smoker; it was lovely to calmly and quietly be able to manage it; and it lasted just long enough to do what had to be done. How pleasant to have conquered that minor challenge :)

I've taken to spending whatever patches of free time I can find to think strategically through exactly what it is I'm going to do when I open the hive. If you ever find me quietly sitting in a corner muttering what sounds like a meditation chant, it's only me, practising in my head, "smoker, top off, crown board off, first frame out, check next frame, check for brood, check brood pattern, replace frame correctly, next frame, search for queen , etc ....".

What usually happens goes something like "smoke, top off, crown board off, where's my hive tool, oh right there it is, now first frame, don't forget to shake the bees off, check for brood, remember to count, look for queen, ouch bugger, one frame aside, next frame, remember which end is in which way, hold on lugs, turn over vertically, check for brood, ooh look queen cell, ouch bugger, oops what's that dropping off the frame, ouch BUGGER!"

This time the bees were very present; loud, defensive, everywhere. There were thousands of them; in the last few weeks, I've had the sense of them literally boiling out of every crevice of the hive and, on looking inside, so it is. At least 5 of the frames have brood in them although the smallest I could really spot were larvae; so the Queen had been present between 3 and 9 days ago. I spotted at least 3 Queen cells being built, as well as isolated drone cells. I could not find the Queen.

Frame 1 still had nothing on it, minimal work being done on Frame 2. Frames 3 - 6 were loaded with a mixture of brood and honey; parts of the foundation had disappeared though and all of them were blackened with use. Frames 7 and 8 were heavy and dripping with honey; frames 9 and 10 less so. The candy fondant feed had only been nibbled at.

I had to step away from the hive several times, as the bees were very defensive and stung me at least three times through my trouser leg and many times on my gloves. I was a little unnerved, to say the least, but I was determined to persevere and complete a full check of all the frames. Halfway through, I finally resorted to using my new pristine-white manipulation cloth and it definitely helped to calm and control the bees.

Finished with the frame inspection, I placed my newly purchased dummy board into the brood box, to fill the space up properly, and to hopefully block cold air getting in and thus encourage the bees to use that first Frame they've never liked to draw out. Then I stepped away to fill a super with frames of new foundation, and came back to slide it very carefully, slowly and gently into place on top of the main brood chamber. This will evolve the colony into a brood-and-a-half size. On top of that I placed my polycarb crownboard and the baker's fondant halfway over the hole in the middle. Then I closed up the hive and left them to it.

For a long while after, I sat quietly in the sun and watched the ladies getting used to the wide new porch in front of their entrance. I watched bees licking sap off the bark of the tree next to me, and licking each other for whatever reasons they have - greeting, bonding, communicating. I even had a bee with loaded pollen baskets land on my leg, and I managed to get a photo. I've had tremendous fun learning to use the Macro functions on my camera while working with the bees.

It has been such a cold Easter, some reckon that the bees are three weeks behind their normal schedule of activities. Perhaps, once again, I'll get lucky in timing the advent of a second brood box with nature's late-developing spring.

After all, in spite of every prediction to the contrary, my bees have actually managed to survive the winter. Who knows what could happen next!