Alternative Accommodation

Hippolyta and Hazel have moved out. 

My guess is that we weren't fast enough with that larval princess and the extra box and so Hippolyta took her best warriors and left, I guess this because we haven't found her corpse, and because I'm optimistic although we haven't heard of or seen a swarm with a green dotted queen around here. Good luck to them. 

Of course, that leaves the Flow hive queenless. 

https://www.honeyflow.com/resources/blog/diagnosing-a-queenless-hive/p/269 

But it might not be as awful as it sounds. It means they're making oodles of honey and we saw a capped supercedure queen cell, so they may well sort out a queen pronto, if they do, we'd like to mark her with blue for 2020. 

We also moved a frame of brood from the 3/4 hive, and will keep doing so every week because that's supposed to keep the force balanced, that is, the pheromones from the brood should keep the workers from starting to lay oodles and oodles of drones. 

Hazel has a room in tiny flat in Bidwill Street, her delightful flatmates seem to share an intention to live in serenity. Good luck to them too. 

Inspection!

The Flow hive bees are all right. Hazel and I did its first inspection at the same time as it was running its orientation flight school and they were super chill anyway. Hazel took the photos, spotted the queen and remembered the details, we both lifted frames and shook bees off to look at them. I did most of the excited grinning. 

The feeder was combed to the next layer down (like it was when I took the hive mat (ceiling) off), I think they do this so it's easier to climb up. 

Here's what we saw North to South:

Frame furthest North they haven't rly started on

Next in they're busy building and going well

Next is v full of honey

Next full of brood (pic above with drone bobbles)

Next also brood (I think this is the one below with the queen on it)

Ditto

Next lots of honey

Then they're building the last one 

We also saw: mould spots under the roof with fewer under the sandbag so I'm off to find a bit of insulation, a bee hatching, the queen laying, lots of wee coils of larvae of various sizes, I'm pretty sure I identified eggs but they're very small, one bee was busy feeding a larva despite her deformed wing virus (in the beautiful sunshine, full of relief that they are going fine, I saw her as a productive member of her society, but I suppose I need to research the infection vector*). All the frames on all the sides had at least some bees on them, and all the built parts were seething with bees. 

*Saturday a few days later: I have read in a couple of places that varroa rather than bees are the vector for Deformed Wing Virus, so it's fine to let affected workers work with the babies. 

The Hive is the Hardware, the Colony is the BeeWare.

The bees have been exploring their new locale and the garden is abuzz with their activity but I haven't yet seen any drinking from the fountain we have set up for them. Teddy and passing birds love drinking from it though. 

I ate my breakfast watching bees come and go ("come and go, talking of Michaelangelo"). The bee coop is as pretty Chicago O'Hare from a distance. Later, I visited them. Up close there are corpses on the ground, each a separate mystery: foolhardy robber, errant prince, ancient crone, cursed child or maybe someone delicate who succumbed to something I should have prevented? 

The 3/4 hive had already finished their syrup, the Flow hive had not quite. Impressed, we made more 1:1 syrup: 

1.6 kilograms of sugar in a big jug, 

Pour on about 1.6 litres of recently boiled water, 

stir together and set to cool for a bit. 

Refined white sugar is the healthiest thing to feed bees. You and I are not like them. 

https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/532260/Feeding-sugar-to-honey-bees.pdf

Later still, after watching proudly and clapping my hands pink as my offspring and my coachees were awarded prizes, in the dark of the night, Sean, Iris and I went down to the bee coop and replenished the feeders. I think we gave the 3/4 hive about a litre and the Flow hive about half a litre. Then I tried to clean up the places where I had poured an unintentional libation of about 100 mls on the kitchen bench and floor. 

Beekeeping Day 1.

I feel the wind of her wings on my cheek as she lands. She walks determinedly, her footsteps and the knowledge of her weapon focusing my attention to my ear. There she stops and buzzes, a special sound, intently rhythmic high-pitched pulses. 

I can not understand her. 

When I was a child there was an observation hive on a window at school. I loved watching them taxi down the runway tube, exchanging quick greetings as they passed each other, the sudden launch and gentle hover, and the exciting moment of change when they engaged their warp drives. 

Today I am watching our two new hives out the study window and that eight year-old inner-trekkie is alight with delight. 

(Hazel, me and Iris yesterday, just before we became noobee beekeepers). 

We have been reading and training and yet we will never be ready. She did her best but I can not know what she thinks. Without a common language, I have brought her whole whānau and their neighbours to live with me. 

With our best intentions, we have made houses for them. 

Without negotiation, I brought the hives to the only home she had known and watched the expert moving-in of her family and all their possessions. 

We installed the hives in an old chicken coop so no-one (including no dog) can bump a hive while just going about their lives. 

With some 1:1 sugar syrup, hope and faith, we opened their doors to let them fly free. Adult sisters poured out of the hives and launched themselves up, clambered through the net and circled above the bee coop, looking down and familiarising themselves with the new place. After a while they were coming and going in a more usual way and all looked well. So I checked the strawberry plants in the bed next-door, which is when she came with the buzz for me.