Bee fiasco

The bees are truly amazing creatures.

About a month ago, I had a major bee fiasco. When the bees were too hot, I had put another super on to give them a little more air. A super is like another box you put on top, like an addition on their house. Anyway, I didn't really have all the pieces. Each super takes nine or ten frames, like hanging file folders of beeswax comb for the bees to put their babies, store honey, etc. I only had five frames, but the bees were hot, so I figured I'd just put it on as is, then order more frames, and put them in later.

But when I opened it up to do that a few weeks later, the bees had already built tons of comb of their own. If I was ever to have a chance of managing the hive, I couldn't leave what they'd built. Also, technically I think you need to have the comb on frames, so the bee inspector can inspect. So I cut out all the comb they'd built.

Obviously, the bees were not pleased!! How would you like it if someone ripped open your house, then threw your babies and your winter stores out into the yard! I got stung a few times, which I richly deserved. Peter got worried about me in my delicate condition getting stung too much and getting all stressed out so he insisted on finishing the job for me, and he really doesn't like bees.

Anyway, it was so sad and stressful, and I felt so bad for what I had done to the poor bees, that we ended up just leaving all the comb the bees had built on the table by their hive where it fell.

I called my neighbor Libby who said actually just to leave it there, and the bees would come put the honey back in their home. She told me to check periodically for robber bees or yellow jackets, which I did, but it rained for about a week after that, so I think that kept the robbers away.

Anyway, the bees totally cleaned up my mess!!

Here are two bees pulling out the last of the honey. This comb had all been capped honey -- all the cells had wax caps on them when I pulled it out -- for storage purposes. They uncapped it all and moved it back into the hive. The beige cells in the background were bee babies.

This is an undertaker bee. It may be hard to tell from the photos, but this is a worker bee dragging out a much bigger drone that was killed in the fiasco.

Anyone want all that beautiful white honeycomb for candles or something?

I still feel really bad about managing the bees so badly, and now I've REALLY hurt their chances of surviving the winter. Still, I can't believe how amazing bees really are. I promised the bees I'd do better next year!!

Also, after the whole bee fiasco I said to Peter, "I owe you one, big time." He just looked at me for a minute and then said, "Yup."