... And In Other News ...

 

If you know me well, you will know that the one thing that keeps me going is the question, "What Will Happen Next?"  The soap opera aspects of life are the things that help me get out of bed every day to negotiate the obligatory tedium of earning a living and to deal with the banality of trying to stay alive as required by the norms of society.

So as I sit here today manning the Reception area in my new role (don't get me wrong, I am loving this job - it's great so far - touch wood), my mind turns to the recent hilarious developments with my bees.  Three weeks ago Tom, Liz and I decided to do early "Shook Swarm" on each of the three hives to combat varroa in the growing brood comb.  We did mine first and it worked perfectly except that I forgot to put a Queen Excluder under the chamber to keep the Queen contained inside.  Unfortunately Her Maj decided she didn't like her new quarters and she took off - taking all of her colony with her.  Cow.

So after all the joy of welcoming a strong colony through the winter and into the spring with a fertile, marked Blue Queen, I opened the hive two weeks ago and found - nothing.  Zip.  Zero. Nada. Nix.   My colony had not so much swarmed as absconded.  Part of me felt bereft, but another part of me - the weary, rebellious, solitary, hermit child - felt a kind of relief.  I had been excused from duty for the summer. 

 

Tom had some Queen Cells in his hives, as well as a lot of sealed brood he was planning to throw away after doing early "Shook Swarms" on his own hives.  It always seems such a tragic waste to a beekeeper, to throw away perfect Queen Cells and perfectly good brood.  So we made an attempt at a rescue by placing them all carefully in my empty hive and closing it up.  If a Virgin Queen were to be born and mate, and the brood all emerge successfully, there was a chance, just a small slight weak chance,  that I could establish a new colony.

 

But thinking about it later, I was convinced that the cold snap would mean the hive temperature would be too low and, with no housekeeping bees in there to raise the temperature, there would be little chance any of the still-to-be-born could survive.  So I took some equipment home with me to set up a decoy hive in my garden with a view to possibly installing a hive next year.  And that was it. 

 

Or so I thought.

 

  "There's activity on the front doorstep of all the hives," said Tom last week. 

 

  "All the hives ?" 

 

  "Yes.  All of them."

 

Well, blow me down with a feather.  What could that be all about, then?  We speculated that Tom's bees could be visiting my hive chamber to rob out all the honey stores left behind.  But my curiousity got the better of me and I couldn't resist driving over to take a look.  We walked down the garden, bursting with life and colour in all its finest spring glory.  And yes indeed.  There were busy bees flying to and fro - out of all three hives.

 

Without my suit on I popped the top off my hive and I saw bees under the crown board, so we gave them a huge box of sugar water feed.  I put the top back.  I walked away.  I stopped.  I looked back.  Again, my curiousity overwhelmed me.  Just what the hell was going on in there?  All advice, all advice is No Entering the Brood Chamber when a Virgin Queen is about to be Mated.  

 

 So what was there left for me to do?  I had to know.

 

  "I'm just going to have a look underneath" I said and lay down on my back and scooted myself directly under the hive.  Liz and Tom looked on in utter bewilderment.  They must have thought I'd completely lost my marbles this time, the few I have left.

 

But lying on my back with my face six inches away from the open mesh floor, I could see a lot.  And what I saw was a lot of bees.  Bees on the floor, bees working, moving, exchanging, interacting.  Bees.  Bees!

 

I wish I could say that I came away unscathed but the little beggars caught me as I emerged directly into their flight path.  PING!  One on the chin.  Ow! Bugger!  I hardly cared or noticed.  I was uplifted, filled with fizz, laughing and shaking my head at the same time.  Bees!  Never, ever a dull moment.

 

Tomorrow they say the sun will be shining and I hope to be able to open the hive box and finally find out for certain what has happened.  It could be bad news - just a bunch of robbers.  Or it could go the other way and be very, very good news indeed.

 

What Will Happen Next!?