Bees part two

I mentioned how there is a certain noise the bees make on a good or a bad day. As I had said, the beekeeper told us we'd know the sound for 'do not disturb' when we heard it.

Well this one particular day we sure heard it. We had come home one day to find a hive had swarmed. We didn't lose the swarm as my hubby had clipped the queen's wings. That meant she could still function but couldn't fly. So most of the bees had made the decision to leave and took off out the front of the hive. Except the queen just sort of tumbled out the front and eventually all the swarm gathered around her.

Great!!! So we got a box and scraped the bees, carefully, into it. Then we closed it up and got another set of supers ready to put the bees into, blocked the door and voila another hive of bees. A swarm is very docile, because as previously stated, they have no home to protect.

What they DIDN'T tell us was that the bees left behind are not a happy hive. They are in a bit of disarray as they have lost their queen and a new one hasn't hatched yet. (They have started to make a few queens in anticipation of the swarming. If one queen hatches first she will kill the other queens in their nests and go off to mate. If two hatch at the same time they will fight to the death.) Anyway, we wanted to check to make sure there were queen cells for the old hive. Otherwise we would have to buy a queen.

My hubby put the bee hat on but didn't feel he needed the rest of the suit as it was such a nice day and perfect to look in the hive. Right??!!
WRONG!!! He starts to remove the lid and this noise starts up. I FROZE! SCARED TO DEATH! DIDN'T MOVE.

Unfortunately my hubby was the one lifting the top and he was moving, only slightly, but moving none the less. One, brave little bee stung him in the thigh. He flinched and swung at the bee and that was all it took. Bees react to movement and the arm swinging told them where to go. They poured out the top and went after him. I was still frozen. He took off and the made for the house. He took two laps around it before he was able to get inside.

I was still standing there and totally afraid to move, but I knew I had to see if he was okay. I very S L O W L Y inched away from the hive and caught up to him in the bathroom where there were bees still flying around him. They were all without stingers by now so no threat to me. I managed to get the stingers out by SCRAPING. (DO NOT try to pick them with your fingers as you will squeeze more venom in. Scrape the stinger out.)

He was pretty sore for a while, but he did put his suit on and go right back out and make sure the hive was okay. They were, and they had a queen when we checked them a couple of weeks later. We got a lot of honey that year and next time I'll tell you about the honey gathering and extracting.

TidBit: Bees can only sting once. They DO NOT BITE. When they get you the stinger stays in you and pulls out of them along with the muscles that keep pumping venom into the victim. They will die, but not right away. Another part of their defence is that they remain alive long enough to continue buzzing around the thing that is annoying them and being attacked. The stinger also exudes a pheromone that lets the other bees know where and what to attack.

Not bad for something that you'll need 2,086 of to make a pound!!