Another Inspection

After returning from my Florida trip on Friday, it had been just shy of two weeks since I had inspected the first hive. Saturday was a little overcast early on and a tad breezy, but I figured it was as good a time as any to see what the girls had been up to. I noticed that they had emptied the hive top feeder of syrup again (their second batch) and yet they seemed to be going great guns with pollen and nectar at the hive entrance. I was anticipating evidence of some major doings upon opening up the hive. Well, I wasn't disappointed!
I smoked them and opened things up. They were amazingly calm. Very few came up to protest the intrusion and the whole time I looked things over they seemed largely oblivious to me. What nice little bees! They had built a little burr comb on the tops of some frames but the vast majority of their work had been spent drawing out some really beautiful comb on the foundation. Seven frames were fully covered on both sides and on two others the bees had made a good start adding more. On five or six frames I saw large, circular patterns of capped brood, pollen and, in the upper corners, gorgeous, white-capped honey. These girls looked like they knew what they were doing!
On frame four I saw her majesty herself, scrambling around with her conspicuous blue dot and oh, so beautiful, at least as far as bugs go. You can see her for yourself in the photo shown below. My son-in-law Dave Phillips took the pictures with his digital camera and to illustrate how passive these girls were, he basically came right up to the hive to snap the pictures in his "street clothes." They never so much as landed on him. I don't know, maybe it had something to do with that ganja weed I used in my smoker. Just kiddin' ma, I did no such thing!
All kidding aside though, I couldn't figure out why they would be so docile now that they actually had brood and honey to defend. They had been more aggressive when I hived them (you may recall I was stung three times). Of course, I'm not complaining. I happen to like laid back bees.
It was just fascinating to examine the frames, covered with thousands of bees, most of which seemed to be carrying out their little jobs despite the fact that they had just experienced what I would think to be a major disruption to their routine. I mean, think about it, one minute they are working diligently away in the dark, hurrying along on their appointed rounds when suddenly smoke begins billowing in from everywhere. Then the lid to their home is lifted off by our hero to bathe the whole place in blinding light. Their hive is dismantled piece by piece, lifted in the air and stared at by this impossibly large something who most likely isn't giving off any pleasant-smelling pheromones. And despite it all, they continue to do the hive's business, largely oblivious to the aforementioned hero. Quite remarkable!
The key, as any beekeeper knows is working below their radar. In other words, the more gentle you are when rifling through their world, the less likely the vast majority of them will even take notice. Anybody who has ever, as a child, kicked an ant mound and had seemingly millions of ants boil out to protest the intrusion at the mere entrance to their nest will surely find the passivity of the honey bee nothing short of extraordinary. The few bees that do get their knickers in a knot must be quite frustrated indeed. I picture them flying around, hopelessly trying to raise the alarm to their sisters. Shouting in bee talk "Hey!!! What the hell is wrong with all of you! Do you realize what is going on?!?!" Only to have the multitudes go on about their business blissfully ignorant to any danger. A very nice circumstance for the beekeeper!
The other rather obvious thing to marvel at when inspecting the frames is the terrific skills the bees employ in building their hive. The picture below illustrates the precisely engineered comb on which everything depends. Their young are raised in the comb cells and all their supply of food is stored there too. Not only is the hexagon design incredibly durable and strong, it is even built with the mouth at a slight upward angle to prevent the nectar and honey from running out. Water is stored here too. The bees use water to cool the hive and dilute the honey for feeding it to the brood. Another extraordinary thing is that if you look at the cells in burr comb straight on in such a way as to see the walls of the cell behind them, you will see that they are offset to provide maximum strength. In other words, the walls of the front cell do not line up with the walls of the cell behind it. You will instead see the bottoms of the rear cell forming a kind of 'X' to form a rigid cross member on which the front cell can be supported. Whether through evolution, a plan of God's or both, bees are incredibly adapted to do what they do. It's humbling to think about.