Video of the world's worst beekeeper in action!

[stacie]

Hi everyone, so I made the decision last week that one of my two first year hives was going to have to go from two boxes to one. I didn't get the packages until late May, and though this one initially had a huge build up and seemed to be doing amazingly well, the later part of summer was really hard on them and they've dealt with small hive beetle and then a high-fatality robbing event that (combined with a dry spell and no flow) has left them pretty depleted. Not where I hoped we'd be in September.

Anyway, I recorded my totally amateur fumbling, edited the two hours of footage down to about 16 minutes, and added a voiceover because... well, the original audio was horrible and I can.

https://plus.google.com/photos/10657...12907901730946

Just a note: I really did smoke the bees quite well before both attempts to put the inner cover back on. Watching it, it looks like I'm squishing bees and I'm sure a few were, but for some reason it looks like mass slaughter on the video. In practice, they ducked down and then I quickly put the inner cover on. Hopefully there was minimal mortality associated. Also, I'm definitely open to constructive criticism on my (lack of) technique, but please try to be nice. Amateur. Novice. Figuring it out as I go.

[buhbee]

The reference to mountains of cocaine made me laugh.. and wonder. Good luck with your bees.

[stacie]

Thanks. Got into my second hive yesterday, planning to roll in the well-drawn frames and call it good, and instead had to remove the top box there as well. I suspect this winter will provide me a painful lesson about being inattentive in the good months. Hopefully my lesson won't be fatal for the bees.

[Gypsi]

Naaa, the google satellite couldn't have caught me when I dropped the hive while changing to my country rubes bottom board. Granted, it was only a 2 or 3 inch drop... Good thing I had a suit on.

[buhbee]

I'm sorry to hear your second hive was weak as well. You mentioned the Golden Rod pollen coming in so maybe it and other things blooming now will provide them with some winter stores. You might want to keep an eye on them in case they need some of that comb back for storage. We had a very dry late July and August and a dearth, but early September rains ( thank you tropical storm Lee ) brought on the Golden Rod and other yellow weeds, and my bees are again foraging like mad packing away the bright yellow pollen and nectar. I have two hives that might need feeding before cold-weather if this current source of nectar dries up.

Speaking of feeding, I have no experience with this but have read that confectioners' sugar doesn't work. I think you want to feed granulated sugar or sugar syrup or honey.

Keep us posted.

Greg

[stacie]

I opened the lid on the first hive while I was out there yesterday and saw a happy wall of bees working their way into the pile of powdered sugar, so maybe it's something they won't take if they're well stocked, but beggars can't be choosers. Looked like they'd already devoured about 1/4 of the amount laid down. Combined with the goodies they're bringing in from the flow getting started now, I'm crossing my fingers that they'll scrape by.

I'm planning on solid feeding until it's too cold to get into the hives, then using a winter wrap along with the other insulating steps to (hopefully) let them break cluster on warmer days and retrieve sugar above them if needed. I'll probably have a moldy mess to clean up in spring, but if I'm lucky, I'll also have some overwintered bees.

[EastSideBuzz]

Surprised you did not get stung wearing black. Mine go nuts over my brown hair so a whole outfit would be lots of dead bee's.

[beeG]

I have a bunch of powdered sugar. I heard it was not good for them was never told why. I see you feed that instead of syrup? I would perfer myself powdered surgar a good way to get rid of it