A Sting and a Queen Sighting

Donna Brown
Jun 14, 2021
4 min read

Updated: Jul 30, 2021

HIVE INSPECTION: 06/13/21

I'll get this out of the way first.

I got stung. A single sting to the ring finger on my right hand, a hand that is now swollen and horrendously itchy and very uncomfortable.

And yes, it was because I got too complacent. The Grilz's recent mild demeanor lulled me into a false sense of security. It happened because I bought new letter stickers and wanted to put them on the brood boxes and do it before riling up the Girlz by opening their houses. It's quite challenging to be dextrous with large leather gloves on so I took off my right glove to aid in the peeling of the letter off its backing. I wear inner knit gloves, so my hands were not totally UNprotected, but unfortunately they are dark blue and probably looked like a big ole bear claw... and that was all it took. There is a reason beekeeping protective gear is white. Point taken Girlz, point taken.

Guard Girl: 1

Donna: 0

Robbin spent the time since we last visited the apiary constructing a new hive stand that has the capacity to hold 4 more hives. Though HIVE E now looks a bit lonely all by itself, eventually we will have between 6 - 8 hives so it won't be but itself forever. We eventually need at least six hives to get and maintain the ag exemption for the ranch.

With the new hive stand in place, and despite my hurting paw, we started inspecting the hives. And per our usual, we moved from left to right (D, C, B, A then E).

My overall impression of our apiary, with a slight exception for HIVE A & D, is just ... lack luster. By this time of year I just feel the hives should be teeming with bees and brood. In most hives, there was a LOT of honey, but I was disappointed by the lack of new and spotty brood. And in a few hives, I am concerned we have laying worker bees. This is a situation where, in a queen-less hive, one or more worker bees, in queen fashion, will start laying eggs. But these eggs are unfertilized so they can only become Drones, not workers. Though these girls THINK themselves queens, and will kill a new queen that might be introduced, they are not. And after our last inspection two weeks again, and with the abundance of drone cells we saw in a couple of hives, I spent the last 2 weeks wondering and fretting. The problem is it is hard to determine. Our plan going into this weeks inspection was to find as many queens as possible. Normally all you need to do is spot eggs and larva, but in the situation of laying workers, it's simply not enough. As they say "the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

HIVE D was rocking. These gals are doing well, lots of honey and one good frame of brood, which is again puzzling. Because of their stores, we removed the sugar water feeder. This is the TX5000 NUC we bought this year and we are sold on this breed of bees. They are bred by Texas Bee Supply to be mite resistant, good honey producers and gentle. WIN WIN WIN. They have not let us down.

HIVES C and B were anemic. Lots of capped honey but very little in the way of brood. I just don't understand what is going on. It might be time to get a bit of professional help, but Robbin is not so eager. We'll have to see what happens during the dearth of summer. HIVE B is the only hive we are now feed sugar water. (I also added a tiny bit of blue food coloring to the sugar water, because given the chance and when nectar is scarce, the bees will store and cap sugar water along with, or in lieu of, nectar. As the saying goes, "if the honey is blue, it's not for you.")

HIVE A - the (less) Spicey Girlz - were bumping as usual. We even saw the queen. See photo above -- can you spot her? We even watched her work for a couple of minutes and look for the perfect cell and lay an egg. I thought I was making a video but I wasn't. Bummer. We ended up robbing one of the Girlz's brood frames and swapped it out for a frame in HIVE B in the hoped to jump start that hive a bit. If that works then we might do the same for HIVE C.During the last inspection we added a SUPER on top of the two deep boxes. This time that box was TOTALLY full of capped honey. Such a surprise — especially given that they not only had to draw out the comb, but also fill and cap the nectar. All in two weeks.

HIVE E, like the B & C, was just meh. Again we didn't see a ton of brood. but their honey stores were holding. It's like the hives we split (C & E) and the one NUC (B) seemed to get off to a great start, but has faltered over the past month or so. I am wondering if the weeks of rain really hurt the rhythm of the hive as much as it did the nectar and pollen flow.

But, as it stands now, we still have five functioning hives.