Day #434 A Silly Mistake

Last April, ten days after my bees arrived, I decided to keep a log of what appeared to be their reactions to the weather. I wasn’t very consistent with it. In fact, after a while I forgot all about it.

But I pulled up the document this morning, thinking it was something else. What an eye-opener. My very first entry was this:

4/27/11:

Tornados/hail predicted.

Morning clear. Bees normal.

4:15 pm Cloudy. Wind picked up. Countless bees swirling around entrance hole and hive, as if every forager wanted to get back inside at the same time. Both hives exhibited this behavior.

Bad thunderstorms and wind after midnight. No storm activity in afternoon, though.

When I read it, I saw right away what had happened. On April 27^th, I’d seen a hatch-out. I was a beginning beekeeper, though, and I didn’t know a hatch-out when I saw one. There had obviously been a disturbance in the hive more than three weeks before that day, some event that temporarily stopped the queen from laying. Then, 21 days before all that activity I saw, the queen had resumed her egg-laying. You might remember that it takes 21 days for a bee to go from egg to hatching.

I thought about it, and remembered that there had been evidence of tornado damage when I drove to South Georgia to pick up my bees on April 17^th. In fact, a tornado had ripped out part of the bee yard, and the folks there were still rebuilding the shed where they constructed their hives.

So this morning I Googled “georgia tornado march 2011” and found that a series of tornados had ripped through the state between the 18^th and the 27^th of March. I’m guessing, of course, but it seems logical that a tornado passing by a hive would be ample reason for a queen to shut down, at least temporarily. She must have felt more secure, though, by April 6^th, in order to lay the batch of eggs that all hatched on the 27^th and sent me into a flurry of concern.

I hadn’t seen any such activity in the 10 days I’d had the hives on my back deck, simply because there weren’t any babies ready to hatch yet.

Just goes to show you, there’s always something new to learn.

BEEattitude for Day #434:

       Blessed are those who pay attention to the world around them, for they shall see amazing sights.

p.s. from Fran -- blessed are those who pour over old documents, for they shall be pleasantly surprised.

_______________________________ 

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my books:  http://www.franstewart.com Please buy them from an independent bookstore or directly from my website.

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Day #209 3, 6, 12

Okay, I finally have it straight.

Here’s the beginning of the life cycle of a bee:

  3 days as an egg

  6 days as a larva

12 days as a pupa

When I check my hives and see eggs present, it means that there was a queen present at least 3 days ago. That’s a good thing to know if I can’t find the queen – and believe me, she’s very good at hiding.

In the first three days, there’s nothing too much for the nurse bees to do, but as soon as the egg hatches, they start feeding that little critter. After six days, the big bees put a cap of brownish wax over the cell, and wait twelve days for the creature inside to mature into a worker bee, at which point the baby bee starts the next six weeks of her very productive by taking an orienting flight (see yesterday’s blog post).

I know I’ve written about all this before, way back when I was starting this blog and reading everything I could about honey bees, but NOW, now that I’m able to see the workings of the hive, it’s all making a lot more sense.

I wish you could join me in a hive check sometime.

BEEattitude for Day # 209:

       Blessed are those who read, for that reading shall start them on a lifetime of adventure.

p.s. I'm supposed to be a guest of Maggie Bishop's on the Dames of Dialogue website today. I don't know when it will be posted, but give it a try. Here's the link:
 http://http://wp.me/ptCd3-1l6

my books:  http://www.franstewart.com

my ebooks on Amazon for Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Fran+Stewart

my ebooks on Smashwords (for all other formats):  http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/FranStewart