The bee keeper diaries

[Iowanian]

You all probably wish I had a go pro last night.
It's the temperature of hell in iowania right now...I've been gone and noticed my bees were bearded up pretty bad on the outside of a couple of hives. That's not uncommon if it's hot.

I decided to be nice...I took a bucket of water down and filled a small water thing with some rocks in it 10' in front of the hives. I was feeling brave and wasn't wearing any protective stuff. I'm looking at these bees and how hot they are and decide I should crack the tops on a couple of the hives to allow some air flow.

I take 1 step towards them and immediately get my ass kicked. I was hit 5-6 times before I even knew I was in a fight. It was like a gang initiation.

During the past couple of weeks we did 2 cutouts, one ironically in my parents home. Never had bees before this year. Both of those cutouts ran away within a day.

Just got a call about another one from a dozer guy who was getting his ass kicked by a tree of bees. I think I'm ducking out of that one for another obligation, but at least it's hot enough to grill meat on the driveway...without a bee suit....and bees that are grouchy as hell due to the heat and their tree being knocked over.


I'm still enjoying it and I'm lucky that I don't swell when I get stung. My brother got stung on the lip the other day and looked like Mush mouth from the cosby kids about 5 minutes later. The hot dry weather here has really hurt honey production. The white clover is stunted and not blooming so everyone has less than they had hoped. If I had to guess, right now I probably have 5 honey supers full. I think you figure about 3-4 gallons per super, so I should realistically have 15 gallons plus this year, and if we get some rain hopefully that much more. We'll see.

[Dartgod]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

During the past couple of weeks we did 2 cutouts, one ironically in my parents home. Never had bees before this year. Both of those cutouts ran away within a day.

What does this mean?

[Iowanian]

Originally Posted by Dartgod

What does this mean?

A swarm of bees found a hole under the roof vent cap and built a hive in the sophet.
We had to tear off some of the trim and the sophet to remove the hive and the bees. There have never been bees in their home before. Ironic they move in when brother and I start doing this.

The bees from that removal flew away the next day from their new hive location. We probably missed or killed the queen. I checked today and the bees are all gone from their home. I'll throw up some pics to show you more.

The week before that we cut a hive out of an old pop up camper. We put that comb in frames and moved the, to a new location and hive. All of those bees swarmed away the next day too. Not sure why. It sure makes all of the work to do it wasted.