This was April 11th, time to introduce the bees to their new crib. As I opened the box of bees and attempted to remove the queen cage, I discovered the bees had built a bit of comb around it. I found that out just after the queen cage fell into the box of bees. Oh joy. Talk about a introduction to bees, first experience ever and I had to stick my hand in the box of 10,000 to retrieve the queen cage. Honeybees are amazingly mild mannered. I did get stung on the back of the hand once, my fault though. I bumped my hand on the inside of the box and mashed a bee. Rookie mistake. I had a cartoon hand for about three days, all swollen, red, and itchy. It looked like the Hamburger Helper hand, only red. The guys at work thought it was the funniest thing ever. At any rate, the queen was pulled out and placed in the tbh and the rest of the girls got dumped in. A few slow pokes made their way in the front door after a while. I added some grub, and closed it up. It went fairly well for my first time, I thought.
Lol, its intimidating reaching into a hive full of bees, the swelling and itching can be really annoying, I did that the first year, this year so far I don't swell so maby there is hope for you to :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Sam,
ReplyDeleteI learned my second lesson one week later. Do not adjust veil by mashing hand on top of head when a bee is on top of head. Ouch again. Not so bad that time, minimal swelling and itching. Then a week later, lesson three, do not pick up items around hive with hive open without looking at them first. Ouch again. Minimal swelling and itching, just a sore finger, the middle one, I showed it to the guys at work repeatedly. I may be getting used to being stung. Oh joy.