Bees...

The bees were delivered a while ago now and as we were caught a bit unprepared having no kit (mask, suit, smoker etc), we were glad to have Jose the bee man on hand come and install our new pets. Having brought a box with 4 frames and about 20,000 bees down from the mountain village of Coconuco, Tony picked him up in the car and brought him and his buzzing travel companions up to the house to show us how it´s done. Unfortunately I missed all the action as I was at a meeting with the neighbours about all sorts of petty and administrative niggles within our neighbourhood. Tony however, got right in there, eager to learn how it all works.

First Jose set up the smoker with some leaves, sawdust and bits of wood and lit it, using the bellow-like part to keep the fire smoldering. He also got kitted up in his astronaut-like suit, special bee tool in hand and after inspecting our hive and considering it appropriate, opened the box of angry and disorientated bees. All 4 frames got placed into top section of the hive along side the other 4 or so frames that we had already kitted out with wax sheets with the idea that over time the bees will extend their building work onto the new sheets. 

 All the while, Tony was taking photos and watching closely - maybe a little bit too closely.  In the chaos, one of the bees stung him right on the eyelid which although painful, didn´t seem to deter him much.  It was only 3 days later when he still had a protruding eye and was provoking fairly horrified reactions from people in the street that he decided to take the general advice and get some medical attention. Turns out it was nothing too serious, that´s just what happens when a bee stings you in the eye - you react.

A few weeks later Jose told us that it was time to add in some extra frames to get the bees expanding the hive and increase productivity. More prepared this time I set off, smoker and bee tool in hand and astronauted up... fairly terrified if I´m honest... to open up the hive and basically invade and destroy their perfect and intricate work. It was totally fine!  It was cloudy and drizzling slightly which might have had something to do with it but the bees were very relaxed about me poking around in there, they didnt try to sting me at all and although many of them did come out to see what was happening, a lot of them just keep on with what they were doing.  Which actually didn´t seem like very much!  Since they were installed a month before, they hadn´t touched any of the new frames and didnt even seem to have created much more honeycomb than I could see in the original photos. Either way, I considered the excersise a success and like the bees even more now as they really dont seem to be that agressive at all considering the fairly dramatic nature of honey harvesting.

Lat weekend, only a week after I suited up, Tony set off to check on the bees and the productivity did seems to be considerably better with the new frames.  The bees have built the wax structure over half of each of the new frames we put in the week before. Again they seemed very relaxed and there were no stinging attempts and I could watch from about 3 meters away with no mask or jacket without them even seeming to care.  Unfortunately though, the lid was covered in large black ants!  From all the internet info I have found, that seems to be fairly bad news as it seems that ants can totally destroy a hive and steal all the honey, brood and wax in a very short time. Tony gave them a good blast with the smoker and scraped them off the lid and as far as he could see, there were none inside the hive but we´ll have to wait and see what the verdict is this weekend. Hopefully it wont be too serious. Hopefully the bees are not as easy going with the ants as they have been with us so far.