Summer                                                             Moon of the First Harvests

A possibly record honey harvest.  From just one hive.  Not sure how to account for the situation but this plucky little colony has put weight (honey) in all four honey supers, at least one is full, and that meant I had to add a fifth and sixth.  The colony plus supers now exceeds my 5′ 7″ so I had to use a ladder to add the last two boxes.

(Artemis Hives titular deity)

When I went outside today, sweatshirt on (for the long sleeves and bulk), gloves (I am trainable.) and the veil, it was like moving in pea soup.  It was the heat and the humidity. Caring for multiple hives in this kind of weather would be brutal.

BTW:  You’re not considered past the amateur or hobby level beekeeper until your number of colonies passes 50.

Summer                                                               Moon of the First Harvests

Slow learner.  Yesterday, in the blistering heat, Javier and his brother and another worker dug up grass in our orchard, a job for which they will be well compensated, but still under difficult working conditions. They did choose the day, btw.

But.  In the orchard I have my one bee colony.  I decided to help them by clearing out the grass in front of the hive after smoking the bees.  Smoked the bees, knelt down and began using my Japanese weeding knife to pull out clumps of grass.  Fine.  Then I got closer to the hive where some of the girls were hanging out on the ground, enjoying the cool sand there.  I had put on the veil (all the stings on my head two years ago convinced me that was a good idea.) but no gloves.

This won’t take long.  He thought.  And, yes, soon after I began digging up the grass near the lounging workers, some of them got up from the sand and lanced my left hand.  Ouch.  One sting right on the fleshy part of my thumb hurt like, well, like ouch!  So, this is the way the slow learner gets the message, always always always wear gloves if digging in front of the hive.  In behavioral psychology they call this aversive conditioning.  It works.