the Buzz

I was able to get out to the hives yesterday. Cooler temps.
I went out the first time to just check on the girls. Just to see if they were doing what bees do. I sat and watched for awhile but didn’t stay out too long because there was smoke in the air.

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It’s another round of smokey air. We have had a small reprieve but there are still wildfires all around us and the air flow  has gone stagnant again. As time went on this day the smokier it got.
The best aspect of the day? The temperature was cool. So I decided to try and see if I could use the smokey day to look into one of the hives.

I wanted to see what kind of honey might be in the supers.
There was plenty of smoke in the air so I didn’t even consider firing up my smoker. That option has been off the table all summer. I thought with all the wildfire smoke the bees might already be mellow. How could they not be?  Boy was that correct. I think they were even over smoked.

I’ve read in numerous books to be sure you don’t over smoke the bees when using a smoker. I have often wondered how much smoke was too much smoke and how in the world could one tell the bees had had enough. Well, now I know.

The girls were lethargic. There were some that were sort of active, there were some that were on guard a little, but, the majority of the girls were laid back. Very laid back.  No aggression. No flightiness.
I worried about them when I saw how mellow they were. Then I remembered we had just been through a week of heavy smoke at the first of this month. They survived that so they should survive this round.

As I worked my way through the frames it became evident that there is no honey in the honey supers. Frame after frame was empty.

I knew when I put the second honey super on this hive, mid-summer, that they probably couldn’t fill it. I was putting it on more for air space and room for growth to prevent another swarm out. But I was really surprised when the next honey super had no honey as well. 

Could I be right about the nectar dearth I suspected? I thought the first honey super I had put on this hive had some honey last time I was in here. But now it has none.

I was happy to see that the next level, the second Deep super on this hive, appeared to have honey in it. I looked down in there and 8 of the 10 frames looked like they are full.

However, I didn’t lift any of these frames out to see if they were totally full. And I didn’t see what the bottom Deep super had in it’s stores. All the girls down in there were huddled up and not moving very fast.
So I put the honey supers back on and buttoned the hive back up. This was probably a mistake. I should have brushed the sleepy bees into the bottom Supers and been done. I’ll need to get back out there and pull those honey supers off soon. But I was in such shock I just needed to put them back together and go process what this visit meant.