Like paparazzi, I stalk them. This one is named Coco.

They live in a high rise with their brood box in the very first (lowest) chamber.  It is where their queen most likely is.  Today, we had some preventative maintenance for the bees, so Gerald and I removed each chamber of the hives to get all the way to the brood box.

It’s really hard as the chambers (or supers) adhere tightly with the sticky honey.  They are also heavy.  Honey is a very heavy substance.   Gerald does the heavy lifting and twisting and I’m standing by with smoker and sugar water.  We are both sweating profusely in our white space suits. Here’s one of the chambers with a few bees on top.  I used the smoker so many of them went down where you cannot see them.

I tried for a close up but not so good.

The scariest part, besides getting stung, is inadvertently harming the queen.    She’s down below in the brood box.  Gerald got stung on his arm right around this time.  Ouch.

We worked with all six hives, and we’ll remove a small amount of honey on or about Wednesday of this week.  We won’t have much.  When you have swarming, you don’t have as much honey.     Fortunately, we also do not have a lot of additional money invested in the hives this year so we’re not going under from expenses.  Our hives survived the winter, and our largest expense has been the replacement of two queens.

I’m back to feeding them daily as of two days ago.   That will supplement the honey that they already have.

The center plant below was bought specifically for them.  I saw it in Lowe’s and bees were all over it.  I had to bring it home to my girls.    Thus far, they’ve ignored it. They are like spoiled children.

It’s just a little favor back to these special friends…don’t you think they deserve it?   Imagine a world without them…

We took the hot white spacesuits off and started to cool off. I rmembered I’d left my camera in the apiary. I walked back to get it in my shorts and a t-shirt. I thought if I moved slowly, they’d probably not mind….here’s how they looked. Those dots are not freckles. Those are mad bees. Still…I thought…I know these bees. I’ll be fine. They’ll be fine…they rarely sting.

Note to self. These are insects. They were unsettled…mad…

Right on the ankle. Ouch!!