The Hive Cycle

Today J. bought some hive boxes that came from a beekeeper who had passed away. It felt good to sit in her backyard and brush off the cobwebs, and scrape off the old wax and propolis. One box in particular had a rich mahogany interior and the funky pine smell of the propolis. I got a kind of "high" off the odor as it triggered memories from seemingly random times in my life. What were they? I can only remember the general feeling of well being and pleasure. I like working with objects that have a history and I have a feeling this gentleman took good care of his bees. I felt honored to be part of his hive (re)cycle. Each box was a little different, painted with whatever color he happened to have hanging around. One box was so old the propolis came off as a fine powder instead of a sticky glue. We listened to the chickens sing a moaning lament because they were cooped up in their pen so they didn't poop on the bee equipment. They were very expressive.

Just as it was starting to rain we popped the a box and frames under the second hive (that swarmed on Sunday) which is a relief. Tomorrow I'll feed them. Wednesday we knocked queen cells off the original hive and took out and destroyed some of the drone cells. I took a close look at some of the drone larva and saw a couple of mites. It's not a big infestation, but we'll be treating them with icing sugar. I must admit I got a bit queezy when some of the white liquid food squeezed out as we were scraping off the drone cells and then when P. cooked prawns for dinner I had to hold back my disgust because they look like giant larvae. Mmmm. Shrimpy.

Wednesday I noticed the mason bees came out to play on Wednesday and today I saw a little sweat bee. We had a nice visit from another beekeeper in the neighborhood and I look forward to getting to know our local apiarists and learning from their experience.