We opened up one of the gentler hives to check things over and show the students what goes on in that mysterious world. The smaller hive below is a nucleus or "nuc" hive that is half the size of a regular hive. It is used as a starter hive, or in other ways as the beekeeper sees fit.
The hive looked quite strong, except for the appearance of chalk brood. Some of the larvae had been infected and were dying in the brood chambers. The nurse bees had chewed holes in the top of these chambers to see why they weren't hatching. These brood will be removed by the beekeeper. We only saw one drone, but lots of drone brood cells with their slightly puffed tops. There was some honey and the bees were busy gorging themselves as soon as the smoker came out. The queen was alive and well, easily identified as she was marked with a blue dot. One of the worker bees fanned her wings and raised her hind-end pumping out the Nasarov pheramone, a kind of homing device that signals other bees the location of their hive.
We scraped some of the extra pieces of comb off the frames and everyone got a taste of the good stuff.
In the first-aid kit above, The Beekeeper has band-aids and meat tenderizer for stings. One person did get stung on her hand so The Beekeeper show how to flick the sting out using the edge of the hive tool. Other items in the kit usually include a bottle of water, an epi-pen and a little bottle of potable alcohol to get the blood rate down.It was a muggy day, overcast and warm. The bees were quite gentle and The Beekeeper packed a lot of information into one lesson. Our heads were pleasantly buzzing with facts about the world of bees and how they fit into the bigger picture. We learned how bees are not just essential components of sustaining human life, but the life of the entire planet.
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