It's official my daughter believes I am a bee killer!

So I had my first extraction of the year today. Went really well. I was not expecting a harvest; first year package bees, but the girls did me proud.

Afterwards I decided "Hey, let me share some of this reward with my ladies.". I brought my extractor and basket out to the yard and set it up a distance away. "Let's see if my ladies can clean them up for me. I will be back in a little while to check on you gals.".

I came back an hour later. Carnage! Bees stuck everywhere. Writhing in bee pain. Stuck in their own creation, drunk most likely. Over my own inner screams I could hear them calling to me "why, why would you do this to us.". My daughter standing next to me looked up at me and said "Daddy you killed the bees". :pinch: My heart sunk and I proceeded to save as many as I could, placing them gingerly in front of the few hives I have at my house, and allowing their sisters to clean them. All in all I lost a couple dozen. My futile attempts saved 6.

I learned today that beekeeping is life and death. You hold the lives of so many in your power.

Later I had some toast and tea with a little honey. It made me feel better. Hopefully tonight will be free of nightmares.:o

I tried saving a drowning bee out of a puddle once... she promptly stung me and died. No good deed goes unpunished.

You know that is what was rolling through my head too! I think they were to waited down with honey to care. Good for me I guess.

Throw some dried grass, leaves, or what-not in there for them to walk on. I've had them clean buckets up so good that all I had to do was turn the bucket upside down and the grass fell out dry as could be.

Go ahead and look up the number for 911 in case those nightmares get too bad tonight. ;)

Ed

Thanks Ed! I did that today with a pan I was using. Worked like a charm. You are right those girls clean everything up lickity split. No pun intended. :D

I did that this weekend. I use crush and strain and rinsed the wax in water, saving the water to feed it back to them. I set out a bucket, put in lots of fresh pine branches and various other things. I checked on it that afternoon only to find all of the branches had fallen out and HUNDREDS of dead bees floating. Oh my LORD! I was so upset! From now on, I will only use sticks.

In the case of honey they all don't die unless it rains and creates a layer of liquid to drown them. Several times I have put honey or the extractor out for them to clean and hundreds get stuck but days later they are all gone except for a dozen or so. Also the ones that are dead are cleaned up by the ones who survive. You could look at it that the ones that died are weak anyway and the hive is better off without them. Tell your daughter you are feeding the bees and weeding out the weak for the betterment of the hive.