I opened my hive again today and things went very smoothly. I checked all the frames and found about six and a half frames fully built out. Several had a layer of honey, a huge layer of brood, and finally a layer of pollen. There were all levels of the life cycle from egg to pupa. I even saw the miracle of life! A new born worker bee was slowly emerging from her cell! So basically things looked great. It was completely uneventful – I’ll post that semi-uninteresting video tomorrow.
As I was leaving the hive my husband remarked on the uneventful visit (well uneventful for viewers like my husband and you folks – extremely interesting for me!). He said it would make for a boring blog post. Well he was almost right, except for the events later. Later that evening, around twilight, while we were sitting next to the sliding glass door that adjoins our screen porch, we heard a rapping at the screened window. I thought a large black bird had hit the screen window but my husband swore he saw a large black cat jump up on the window. We were the only two who noticed anything. My husband immediately walked outside to investigate and our friend followed. After returning from his investigation, my husband detailed the situation and claimed that he saw a huge black cat stand on his hind legs and put his paws on our garden to peer in (we have a 4×8 raised garden bed covered in bird netting held up by PVC piping to deter deer). He swears it was a giant black cat or perhaps a bear. We chuckled and believed he was seeing things.
Fifteen minutes later my friend (who is facing the window) shouts that there is a black bear in our yard. My husband and I turned around in time to see a small black bear lumber into the empty wooded lot behind our house, 8 feet from the beehive. I guess my husband wasn’t crazy after all. (Except for the fact that he ran out after the bear to investigate, despite my shouts of disapproval.) For reference about how terrifying this is to me and my bees I must add that Winnie the Pooh’s addiction to honey is based on fact. Bears indeed love honey, and will gladly destroy a whole hive to consume the sweet larvae and honey inside. I am really hoping he didn’t find my bees attractive.
A bear! Good grief– be careful. Love the whole bee keeping adventure! See you on the 27th!! Call Stephen for info.
Mrs. Colton remains concerned to the point of nausea that her eldest son and daughter-in-law will come to some harm due to the bees – requiring hospitalization & assorted long-term health problems. Bears on site compound these anxieties. We are not quite yet at DEFCON 1 or Category 5 or whatever.. More like a 7.0 on the Richter scale.
Yikes! Your first few weeks with “the ladies” and already you have your first honey-hungry visitor! PS: I always suspected that you had only ordered the bees to fuel your real hobby — bear ranching!
WOW, such excitement! Maybe a surveillance camera should be added to your Christmas list. I shudder at the thought of our grand-bees being something’s dinner. Please do keep the Master of the House IN the house should the bear return. Boys……….!