Well this was a fun afternoon....I got stung! To be fair I totally deserved it though.
The bees are doing well enough now that we decided it was time to add a second super (box) to the hive. The original installation we only put them into a single super so as to force them to focus on that box, and they did quite well in cleaning out the dead bees and making it their home. We wanted to make sure they had plenty of room for growth, and so Colleen and I decided it was time to get that second bigger (deep) super installed.
The overall idea going forward is that it would be awesome if we can actually harvest some Tanglewood honey, but it's not necessary. Having bees around and doing their bee thing is more than enough as far as we're concerned...but it would of course nice to harvest some honey eventually.
However we want to make sure the bees will have plenty of room dedicated to them. So the idea is to install this second super and, if all goes well, eventually we might consider adding a third super eventually.
SO....Colleen got all suited up to work with the bees and I figured that since they had been very kind to me that I didn't need to suit up. THIS WAS A MISTAKE.
It was thoughtless of me really, and as I said before it was totally my fault. We took off the top of the hive and removed the feeder, and of course the bees were kinda all over the place trying to figure out what happened to the roof of their house. As Colleen got ready to put the new super on there were naturally a zillion bees in the way, and I (without thinking) snagged the brush and tried to scoot them out of the way.
Yeah..THAT pissed them off. I had one sting me almost immediately as the nearest obvious threat, and as I started to head for the house they followed me closely. After all, the roof of their house had vanished, I had rudely brushed a bunch of them out of the way, and so SOMEBODY had to pay for that travesty.....and that was me. I got stung another time on my hand before I was able to escape into the house.
Again, this was totally my fault. I should have known better, and was properly punished by them for the indignity.
At least we've got the other deep super installed and they're already busy tossing out the dead bees from the first hive and exploring their new expanded home. I tried to make it up to them by filling their sugar water to the brim later in the evening, but I'm definitely going to have to wear the bee suit for a while....
Oww....
Steven in Colorado
My Construction Website
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