So, here goes my story about my packages and nucs. I’ll try to make it short and to the point, but you know me and my rather long winded stories.
Last Saturday I hived my four Kona Italian nucs. Two pounds each, one beautiful golden queen. I have not had the honour of seeing an Italian queen before. I have had Carniolan packages in the past and there certainly is a difference. Both have their beautiful points, and these ladies are a sight that I cannot describe, it holds me in wonderment.
The past week has not been the best of weather to go into the new package hives and see how things are going. One night though, I did take a quick peek and saw that one package queen had been released, I left the other three alone.
Yesterday the weather was fine. After I had taken my boxes over to the bee breeder’s yard to be filled up with 5 frame nucs, I came home and checked on the package colonies. Gentle as the day now is long, narry a look at me as I thoroughly inspected their little kingdom. I saw the queen in each colony, walked so slowly over the comb. I watched her look into a few cells, knowing she was inspecting them as deeply as I was inspecting her home, to ensure that the place where she was going to lay her egg was clean and tidy, ready to receive the tiny piece of her that will keep her kingdom alive and prospering.
These package bees are dark as dark can be. Their queen is blonde as blonde can be. She could be seen easily amongst her girls, so busy doing their own thing.
I saw eggs in each package colony, and in one of them I saw eggs and one and two day old larvae. She must have been released from her prison within her home on Tuesday I would venture, the others maybe a day or two later. No stings, beautiful calm bees.
Now back to another part of this story. When I took the empty boxes (each box had 4 frames of honey/pollen and an inner feeder frame) to the bee breeders place to be filled up with bees and brood, I forgot my veil. Oh brother. What a nuisance. I wanted to be a part of observing the nucs he had being placed into the homes that I was providing for them. This beeyard was very busy, there were three men preparing many nucs and the bees were a’buzzing everywhere!!! Still undaunted, I thought I would wing it without any protection. Probably not a good idea when so many bees are experiencing such disruptive manipulations by human beings, but my curiosity got the better of me, AGAIN. I have this issue with curiosity. Oh well, so I went over to begin my studying of what was going on with my nucs and their new home. One bee decided that it was going to get stuck in the fuzzy hair on my neck that doesn’t get put up into the ponytail that I always wear. I could hear it buzzing and was just waiting for the pain. Sure enough, the sting was everted and I got a sting. I got out the stinger and carried on. I didn’t have any smoke to blow on my neck to disguise the sting pheromone, so I just winged it. Should have thought twice, but was not interested in thinking twice right at that particular moment in time. A few minutes later, the bees all still being very agitated, one decided that my eyelid would be a good target. I felt it land on my eyelid, (we all know how sensitive these areas are), I could feel the legs gripping to get ready to blast me. Sure enough, a moment later her stinger was everted and I packed one on the eyelid. This time I thought that I had better not chance hanging around outside anymore. I didn’t need more stings to my eyelids, been there, done that. So the remainder of the exercise I watched from the confines of our truck, still wishing I had the guts to go back, but without the veil, I became a chicken. Probably a good thing this feeling of intimidation.
The bee breeder finished the job, we shook hands and I told him at sundown I would come back and pick up the bees. Which we did.
Now onto another part of the story that still makes me stand in awe of my actions. My husband and I went back to the beeyard about ½ hour before sundown and loaded up the bees. They were all home. I put a plastic mesh over the front entrance and stuffed some grass up into the upper entrance and pushed the outer cover over to hold the grass in place. We transported the bees home, just enough light to barely see. I was a little bit off with my estimation of nightfall, so it was a little darker than I would have cared for it to be, but oh well.
My husband carried the boxes to their respective bricks and set them on. These bricks had been leveled perfectly today, which took some work, but level, north, south, east and west (LOL). The last box the lid shifted the the grass plug fell out. I was ensuring that the box was perfectly set still on the bottomboard and lo and behold, a bee sneaked out the upper entrance. Guess who she was after? You got it, me!!! She landed on my other eyelid, again, I felt her feet grab on to the flesh on my eyelid and the sting was everted. EEEKS. Now this sting hurt bigtime, probably worse than I have ever felt before. Must have been one of the oldest bees in the hive and was FULL of venom.
My poor neice. I went over to her, she was standing a little distance away watching, and told her to make sure that the stinger was not still in my eyelid, I thought it probably was. She asked me what it looked like. I said, something white. She tried to flick it off with her fingernail, but it wasn’t working, so she pulled it off. The worst thing to do, but she just couldn’t get it out. So, this cranky old bee really did get me a good one, her death wish came true -- in that the stinger did not get out immediately, and it did its good job on my eyelid. (I always worry now about the stinger getting right in my eyeball, since all the discussion about stingers in the eye on this forum). We went into the house, I took some Benedryl, went to bed and went to sleep. Woke up this morning and my eye looks like a beautiful piece of work. First first eye sting at the bee breeders place is pretty much gone (it must have been a young bee I bet), but my eye on the other side looks like I am of alien species for sure.
So, anyways, I am a happy camper. I now have 8 new colonies and my old overwintered colony that is growing like wildfire. I had a good day. Have a wonderful day, best of this new day, great health wishes to all. Cindi
Topic: Stories of my packages and nucs (Read 2015 times)