Honey not quite ready yet

The morning started out wet, but with the sun appearing wanted to check on how the ladies had been doing with the honey. Still not quite ready, guess will be another week or two yet.

But the jar labels have arrived so I think I now have everything ready for my first harvest :-)

I've retired to my bees in this mad world!!!

Had a few days off to watch cricket, today was going to be a no cricket day, but so far just been watching mad scenes on the news!

So thought would risk cutting the grass and then inspecting the bees, I'm not about to start cutting the grass in my bee suit to avoid that next sting! I was going ok until I felt some movement by my ear, getting closer to going into my ear, thinking quick i stuck my finger in my ear and retreated to the bathroom to get it out of my hair, sure enough there she was on my ear, that was close, I've had an ant in my ear, but a bee!!! Grass was finished without further event.

Hive inspection went well, think a few weeks from now I will be harvesting my first honey :-), one young lady did manage to sting my right thumb through my marigolds, no will see if I am allergic to bee stings! This time its my right thumb so I will be useless if it swells up like last time!!

So what to do with the rest of the day, the choices are to make a candle out of

this bees wax I have collected or some more work

on that skep I started what must be ages ago!

Bees and rain

We had very heavy rain earlier this evening and just by chance looked out at the bees and saw them behaving very strangely, I always thought bees didn't like flying in the rain but they were everywhere, they didn't look to happy! I know it doesn't look like it in the clip but it was hammering down, so much so that I thought I had ruined my camera, but it did eventually come back to life:-)

More queens than Henry!!!

ok these have to be the most demanding ladies ever! They surely can't bee looking for another queen already? Found a few queen cups which are early warning signals that the little ladies, surely they won't swarm this late in the season?

And if you look closely just below the two queen cups are some larvae in cells waiting to be capped off, will they be some of the last offspring from what could be the shortest reign ever!

Honey and pollen

I was hoping that this mornings inspection would show me honey ready for harvesting, but not quite ready yet the stored honey needs to be capped off with wax, if not then it will be too watery and no good. This photo shows some cells capped but most almost full and waiting to be capped.

The next photo shows pollen being stored ready for feeding the young larvae, it is all sorts of colours, the bees seem to store pollen from different plants in different cells!

Entrance block or not?

Read an article in Beecraft earlier and now think I know why the bees took offence to me cutting the grass the other day and had never before.

A couple of weeks ago I was watching the bees going in and out and could see there was a bit of a bottle neck going through the reduced entrance that the entrance block creates, I thought if they could go in and out quicker I would get more honey?

But I think what happened was that the bees got uncomfortable with the wider entrance to guard. They have to guard the entrance because other bees and wasps will rob honey from other colonies, I have often seen bees fighting with wasps at the entrance. Bees are also creatures of habit and they don't like change. The end result is that I think I made them a bit more aggressive and the lawn mower tipped them over the edge.

Yesterday evening I popped out and put the entrance block back in, hopefully they will feel a bit better and I can cut the grass again at a reasonable hour of the day! Time will tell.

PS Just noticed that I have posted over 100 posts, so a little bit of a milestone :-)

Bees and Borage

The little ladies have been busy today dodging the showers and collecting nectar and pollen from the Borage Plants that I grew from seed this year.

They are pretty vigorous plants so if you do ever get the urge to grow some give them plenty of space or they will crowd out other plants!

That said they are versatile if you can be bothered to deep fry the leaves or use the flowers in drinks and salads, I tried eating a flower today it wasn't that remarkable, but I can see why might be nice in a pimms :-)

PS Hand has recovered from last weekends sting.

The one armed naked beekeeper!! Ouch :(

OK after an afternoon in A&E I am questioning if I do love those bees! That sting last night has developed a bit to say the least, first photo is about an hour after the sting, second was in the A&E waiting room.

Looks is if somebody has just blown up a washing up glove!

So I now have cellulitis, a big dose of antibiotics and penicillin and arm in a sling for two days, if swelling keeps moving up arm it's into hospital and onto a drip!

Googled cellulitis, wish I hadn't!

So does this spell the end of my rather short journey into beekeeping? I hope not, but not keen to test out another bee sting too soon!

Thanks to Sue from beesnbeans who forwarded a month or so ago, an email about beekeepers reporting very bad bee stings this year which have lead to cellulitis, I wonder why, is there some new bee disease lurking around the corner?

Without Sue's email would I have bothered to go to the hospital?

I like my bees, Not!!!!

Ok, did I really say they were calm ladies? Well like all ladies they like to keep you guessing.

Decided to cut the grass earlier, have done it plenty of times before, this time they decided they didn't like me cutting the grass, they attacked!

End result, I ran over the lawn mower lead as I retreated and cut it into pieces, got a bee sting on my hand, not sure what my hand looks like now, a pretty impressive swelling! And finally got chased back into the house. Whoever said stand still and they will ignore you was gravely mistaken! :-)

Anyway on the good side, took delivery of a honey extractor yesterday, my birthday prezzie to myself. Jars are on their way, all I need now are some labels.

Does anybody have any idea what I should call my honey, "Whyteleafe Honey" sounds a bit boring?

Ok it all looks quiet outside now, going to get that grass finished!!

My ladies are pretty calm

Forgot to mention in last post that when I had finished inspecting the hive yesterday I went to unzip my suit and realised had left the veil completely undone!!! I'm very very glad the ladies were in a nice easy going mood:-)

Can any body spot the proud mum of all my lovely ladies?