Hives of horror

I do a reasonable amount of beekeeping. I've probably got a larger than average number of colonies, and I'm a 'hands on' beekeeper. I inspect my colonies at weekly intervals, and — for the last month or so — have been busy rearing queens, doing splits of larger colonies during swarm control, conventional queen rearing, and dabbling with unconventional ways of getting the queen to lay directly in oversized plastic queen cups.

All of which means that I probably open hives at least every two or three days, and sometimes on a daily basis.

For example, this morning, in a squally south-westerly, I opened a double-height (6+6) nuc box I have set up as a cell raiser to introduce a cell bar frame so that it is acclimatised for grafting tomorrow. I also topped up the contact feeder with syrup.

It was 11 °C and spitting with rain. The bees were not thrilled to see me, partly because of the conditions, and partly because some originated from a colony with poor temper.

Why not wait for a better day?

Some things in beekeeping are time-critical. My activities this morning weren't, but by doing it today (in less than ideal conditions), my queens will be ready one day earlier. In Scotland the beekeeping season is short, and it's not unusual for entire weeks to be lost to inclement weather {{1}}.

'Strike while the iron is hot' … there are ~9 months of the year I'm not able to rear queens, and ~6 months when I do little or no beekeeping. Briefly opening the colony in light rain is a no-brainer if it means I can squeeze in a bit more beekeeping before the end of the season.

So, I'm in and out of my hives whatever the weather, as required (though not without good reason).

Stings

Despite this, I rarely get stung. In fact, it's so rare that I commented on a post a fortnight ago that I'd just received my first sting of the year.

So far, that's the only sting I've had this season, though I'm sure there will be a few more {{2}}.