Reversing supers

The weather's turned beautiful again. Dry, sunny, warm. I thought it might be a good afternoon to work the bees a little. The cold, wet May had delayed far too long a basic hive inspection, cleaning the bottom board, and reversing the supers. Reversing the supers means switching the two boxes full of hive frames, so the bottom one is on top and the top one is on the bottom. The queen really prefers to go up to lay her eggs, and I had noticed that all the bees already seemed clustered near the top, so I thought they might like a super reversal.

Anyway, the bees did not seem in a mood to be worked. I remembered in the beekeeping workshop I went to a few years ago, the teacher said that if when you work the bees, after you smoke them (which helps calm them and warn them you're coming) and have done things slowly and properly, they still fly right in your face and buzz angrily, you may take that as a sign they really don't want to be worked right then, and come back another day. Anyway, I worry that its just that I'm out of the habit, but the bees in my face persuaded me to just reverse the supers and call it a day.

The photo above I took after I worked the bees. There're still a bunch of bees flying worriedly around outside, too upset for me to get too close with the camera, but I'm sure even by now they're well on their way adjusting to the switch and getting all in order.

Our friend Tam is coming in July, and I'm hoping when she's here she'll help me do a more thorough inspection of the bees. From what I saw today, the hive seems still relatively small and with relatively few honey stores, which is understandable given their late start last year and the cool wet spring. But they seem to be working hard and thriving, so I'm optimistic they'll have a good summer.