I went out to the hives yesterday into the sweltering humidity that only a 3:00 pm summer day in Virginia can provide. Armed with two bottles of ice water and small packet of Propel drink mix I was ready for anything the bees could throw at me. Knowing that my hives were a little bit on the ornery side I double checked all of my bee suit openings to make sure the warrior queens would find no entry.
After smoking the front of the hive I now dub as House of the Rising Stinger I walked behind it and slowly lifted the top cover. I now know what it must feel like to be a member of a bomb disposal team. Would she blow when I opened the box or would this just be another bucolic day out in the apiary like I had envisioned years ago when I started beekeeping. Then she blew. Hundreds of tiny insectoid winged shrapnel flew out from underneath the inner cover with a loud drone. The drone came from me and not the bees. Luckily I had my suit on otherwise my face would look like an 80 pound mutated turnip or Mickey Rourke. Bouncing off of my screened face I laughed at them as I began the process of quickly dismantling their hive for inspection.
House of the Rising Stinger
Solid Brood pattern, check.
New eggs, check.
Pollen, check.
Honey/Sugar Water, check.
Angry worker bees, double check.
All was good. I was a little disappointed to not see much in the way of honey stores yet but they had only just begun working the upper parts of the hive. I also decided to rotate the bottom hive boxes to give them more room as they were already in the upper hive body chamber which was packed with brood. During the whole time time they were progressively getting more angry. As I was putting the hive back together, “Flight of the Bumble Bee” echoed through my mind only performed by classic Metallica and not that new crap they are selling. What a circus.
The second hive went much more smoothly. None of that pent up aggression was found in their hive. I found the queen and told her what a wonderful job she was doing in keeping her children in line unlike the ruffians down the way.
The third hive was a dream come true. Quiet, industrious, and friendly. I call these bees The Waltons. They actually gave me a tour of their hive with shortbread and tea as a treat. The most surprising new addition to their home was a 1/2 full super of pure liquid gold. For only being active for 4 months they had done a great job of building up their population and wax structure to actually allow for significant honey storage.
The Nice Bees
As I closed their hive I said thanks and then clicked my heels in the air before I headed home.
That first hive is a real problem. Defensiveness works wonders in nature but when you are in a bee yard it can become catostrophic. Sometimes I feel like committing regicide and replacing the queen with a better one but I should at least give this hive a chance to prove itself. It may work to my favor if a bear is seen around here again. A bear poking its nose in this hive is likely to regret it.
This has probably been one of the worst weeks I have had in a long time. My bees hate me, the sun hates me, mosquitoes love me, and now even trees plan my demise. About a week ago we had either a micro burst or a tornado go over our area and man it looks like the thing from Cloverfield took a stroll through Charlottesville. Trees were split in half, some bisected nice little brick colonials, and one even landed on our house. Still I consider myself lucky.
The Death of Treebeard
It was around 4:30 PM. I had just taken Leia home from the pool because I noticed some storm clouds moving in our direction. Not less than 5 minutes in the door the wind really started to pick up. The trees began swaying, lightning began to streak across the sky and the once blue heavens turned a dark greenish color. It was like going to a Rave Party except all of the dancers were 100 ton trees who were angry at us for living in a house on their Killing Floor. At first they only began throwing limbs at our house and when that did not force our exit they decided to fall on us. Contrary to M. Night Shyamalan’s crappy movie about vengeful flora our trees are not yet sentient with most of them banzai-ing onto their fellow flora or simply falling to the earth with a thud. All of them except for one cluster of bastards that decided the apex of our roof would be a nice place to recline.
This tree looked like one of those mutant trees you might find growing near Chernobyl. Three torsos from one pair of roots.
From inside the safety of our basement we heard the wind from outside just blow the trees around like dandelions. Then, the sound of a wooden sail ship getting rammed by a white whale echoed over our house as one of the tree triumvirate broke its back on the top of our roof. Immediately following that, from our back basement window we spied the top part of its carcass crash down on the other side of our house clipping our deck.
Once it settled I ran upstairs. First floor was OK except for some cracks in the ceiling. The second floor was far worse for ware. Right where the tree had fallen, on my office bathroom, it looked like it had survived a medium sized earthquake. The roof had shifted and there were breaks in all of the dry wall.
Outside the mutant tree had fallen right along the crease of our roof and the one larger tree was hanging precariously over the entire length of our house applying considerable weight on our beams.
I can only imagine, and I frequently do, what Charlottesville might sound like during a zombie invasion. The following 5 hours was an audio replay of one. Sirens everywhere, horns honking, and people wandering around in disbelief. Worse were the gawkers. You know those kind of people. The ones that rubber neck at traffic accidents or the ghouls who watch war footage on You-Tube all night. If there was a hell, these people have a special place in it. One dude was even taking pictures.
With this calamity came the second one. Our Safeco Insurance salesman and the fly by night “arborists” that descended onto our household. Both trying their best to weedle money out of us.
Hey Man we will take care of your tree for 20,000 quid.
By far the faux arborists were the worst. Knowing people were in a tight bind their rates became extraordinary exhorbinant to the point of criminal. One group of clowns offered to cut our tree off the roof for a measley 10 grand. When he found out we had gone with someone else, a real aroborist, he wanted to see if he could match their price. I was like, you just tried to gouge us buddy for 4,000 dollars more than the real tree man, why the hell would I trust you to cut my trees. The funniest attempt were these dopes having nothing more than a beat up pick-up and two chain saws. When they saw the amount of work involved they did not even bother to come down the stairs to our house and tucked tail and ran.
The people that did come out were professionals with a capital “P”. They gave us a solid quote, came out the day we had the estimate done, and took care of our main concern of getting the large tree off the roof. They used ropes and other tree limbs like a master surgeon when extracting the the lifeless body of Treebeard from our roof.
Stihl vs Treebeard
During that time my family and I took up lodgings at the nearby Discomfort Inn with the rest of the Charlottesville refugees and made the best of it. Across the street we drowned our sorrows at Duncan Dunouts and a local restaurant called Lord Hardiwicks.
Once most of the tree had been cut off we moved back into our house and are now living in our basement. It sounds bad in words but our basement is finished so don’t shed a tear. We are doing fine.
Later in the week I went out to see the bees to see if they could comfort me in my time of hardship and like before they stung the bejeezus out of me. My bees are hateful little bastards. I might jar 100 of them and leave them in my Insurance Man’s car for being such a cheapskate.
Other than the 20000 cc’s of bee venom volunteered by my bees they are fine.
