Queen Bee
Everyone says beekeeping is so easy…
They say things like:
***You just have to get used to it…
***It’ll become second nature with time…
***With practice it’ll be easy to tell the difference between worker bees, new worker bees, drones, & the Queen…
“They” say these things while they’re sitting on lawn chairs in the middle of their bee yard while wearing bikinis and speedos…
HA!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s NOT easy!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here: Test your skills at identifying the hive’s Queen in this fun little video…
Other than the super easy ones…….I failed miserably.
Here’s a harder one (I have no excuse for the two goofballs at the beginning of the video).
*****Find The Queen Bee/Harder Test*****
I’m still having trouble identifying the differences between brood cells and capped honey cells…………Pascal, don’t pass along my confessions……….I’m telling you this in strictest confidence…
It’s really NOT that easy…
(she says in her whiny-est voice.)
Every morning I check on the hives while I’m doing the back pasture chores.
The hives seem really happy and thriving. Just buzzzzzzing away.
I am assuming that the two queens are doing their job……….but I don’t really know…
Maybe that identification-skill will come with time…
I bought the suggested magnifying glass for apiarists……………….I figured with macular degeneration and central vision blindness……….I need all the help I can get trying to figure out the minute-bee-differences.
I did learn something the last time I opened up the hives to check for mites……………….(and yes, honey bees get mites…….varroa mites to be specific).
Here’s what I learned…
Wearing my husband’s old, long-sleeved, work shirts as bee protection is just fine as long as you aren’t sweating like a pig (which I was) with the fabric subsequently sticking to your skin……………..and your stupid smoker goes out…
They were mad………………and they hurt…(4X’s)
I even got stung through my gloves!(?)
News Flash! This old girl can still move fast!!!
I ultimately got the mite strips in between the necessary frames in the brood box…
I have to admit I did have to return later after the bees had calmed down to straighten up their hive boxes.
They may have been stacked back up less than carefully and a bit skew-whiff……………..I had other things on my mind…
