bleh

I gave my bees some heavy (2:1) sugar syrup to boost their stores for the winter. I think I will keep the feeders on until I wrap the hives for the winter.

Also, I put the entrance reducers in the main entrances to keep out any mice looking for a cozy home for the winter. The drawers for the screened bottom boards also went in today, to keep out any cold drafts.

I feel like I have been neglecting my bees recently. Since my promotion at work, I have been working a lot, and have little time to tend to my honey bees. In fact, I have had little time to tend to any other responsibilities.

Honey

I will get some honey this year. The trick right now is finding the time to extract it and fill some jars. There will be gifts of honey.

My reactions to honey bee stings are becoming less severe. During my last trip to my apiary, I was stung five times. The swelling was much less than the last stinging incident, and the itching and irritation went away sooner.

The viticulturist who works in the vineyards near my bees has informed me that honey bees have been feeding on damaged grapes. Of course, this irritates the harvesters, since they don't want to be stung. But this is fascinating to me, since I wonder if I could get grape juice in honey. Would I get purple honey?

2d Treatment

Treated the bees for the second time with Sucrocide. The operation proceeded much more smoothly this time. It was faster, and the bees were less irritated.

Unfortunately, I think I initiated some robbing of A hive by B hive. I reduced the entrance to the hive with some sticks and hoped for the best. Fortunately, it was late in the day and there was not much time left before nightfall. I don't know if it will be wise to continue with the third treatment, if I am risking a similar situation.

Life sucks

I received a promotion at work. Now I work a lot more and make a little bit more money.

Sucrocide

I sprayed both hives with Sucrocide to treat for mites. Hive B was treated on Saturday, 3 September. I succesfully treated the top two hive bodies, but by the time I got to the bottom hive body, the bees were very agitated, and I called it a day. Hopefully, next time I will be practiced enough to get all three done before the bees get so agitated.

I treated A hive on Monday, Labor Day. I got all but the last three frames done. I stopped at that point owing to the presence of the queen. I am still worried about smooshing the queen, so I stopped after I found her.

I will return and treat both hives next Monday.

With the goldenrod flow on, both hive entrances are crowded with foraging bees coming and going. To me, the level of activity is awesome, and I love to sit and watch the activities at the entrances.

Kitten and bees

We surrendered the kitty to a foster home, hopefully to be adopted by some nice family. In the meantime, she will be living with some slightly older kittens and their feral mother.

I visited my bees, and added a third hive body to A hive. Instead of taking a frame of drawn foundation out of the 2nd body and swapping it with a frame of bare foundation in the 3rd, I took two drawn frames from B hive. I hope this will give some extra help to the hive that needs it, and give a bit of extra work to the hive that is very strong.

Kitty's gotta go!

Sadly, we have decided to find a new home for our kitten. Our dog thinks that the kitten is food, I think.

Would anyone like a kitten?

My bees have mites

First of all, the cat cost me 150 dollars this afternoon. She is a little sick and wormy from being on her own, but she should be ok. It looks like she got beat up by another cat, and she has two big teeth marks on her soulder. She will be just fine as long as she does not become dinner for one of our dogs.

I pulled out the drawers in the bottom boards to check for mites, and hoo-boy I have some mites up in there.

My first (very small) honey harvest

I went to check on the progress the bees have been making in the honey supers. Most of the frames are still not completely capped, but they are nearly ready. However, I could not resist taking one frame with me. The smell and taste of a comb of honey straight from the hive is simply ambrosial.

Kitten Rescue

No sleep for the wicked, so I may as well write about this evening's excitement:

This evening, vinfille and I took the dogs for a walk. Returning home, we heard a cat meowing, and we were curious. We put the dogs inside, and went to where we heard the cat, just three houses down the street. We discovered that the meowing was coming from under the hood of our neighbour's car, so, a bit alarmed, we rang the doorbell and informed our neighbour that there was a cat in his engine. He seemed unconcerned, and informed us that his wife had just recently chased the cat out. I asked him if it was a cat or a kitten, and he told me it was a kitten. Again, he seemed completely unconcerned about a kitten under the hood, so vinfille and I left.

We returned a short time later, after nightfall, with flashlights. Fortunately, we found the kitten sitting underneath the car, and not actually in the car. Unfortunately, when we approached too closely, it went straight into the old canal which parallels the street...