as part of a study on verroa mites and hive culture, the university of maryland has chosen 100 hive sites in the country. the bk navy yard is one of them n since i'm back on board, i participated. participation requires collecting a sample of 100-300 bees per hive. we have 12 or more hives up there.
it was sun-beaming when i got to the rooftop at 10am. n the sun baked us when linn went over veroa mite culture and what to do about it. we went through a hive with two supers, one medium and two small deeps.i hadn't worked up there since last fall.
i noticed that there was looseleaf between one deep and another. dude next to me, a soft-spoken long island cat, explained to me that during a previous week, they'd incorporated the deep from one hive with the deep from another and so that they didn't wild out on each other and instead grew accustomed to one another, the looseleafs were placed as barriers. by the time they ate through the paper, they'd be at peace. or something like that.
there were some frames that were dripping with honey and others that were a bit sparse. linn mentioned something about maintaining a temperature. bees, she said, do better in a busy environment than a not so busy one. part of what contributes to buzzzzy is cells being drawn out with capped brood. this means more babies, which means more workers.
a hive full of honey frames isn't a good sign, since this may lead to the children of men scenario. we may be doing great things with the world and all, but if there's no one to carry it forward, then it's suicide.
we mixed up the empty frames with the busy ones, the way we did last week. except last week, when i was with olivia and kristen, we cut out the frames for honey and put the foundationless frames next to the ones with foundation. hopefully the bees will draw out the comb. we'll find out next week. the combs on these frames were plastic and as Tim mentioned last year, bees don't like plastic. who does?
so we found some verroa mites. dude from l.i pointed one out on the body of this drone. drones tend to be more susceptible to the mites since they got big butts and are just big and easy to target, like fat people.
the test involved using a scooper, that looked like one of those small metal measuring devices. one of the apprentices, who was lanky with circle glasses from the 19th century and looked like he was brought out of an hg wells book, held up a frame. l.i. dude scooped down with the scooper, and poured them into a funnel which he held over a small bottle full of rubbing alcohol. the bees died on contact. sad. cruel. for the sake of science. for the sake of their own benefit. yeah? idk how i feel about it yet, but i wanted to try, since it was new and all.
me and l.i. dude paired up, took turns going through the frames in the deep and scooping and dropping. the bees were buzzing something crazy after a while. the sun hid in thick clouds and a breeze like Jason or Freddy ran through us. and so did the bees. got stung four times, on three different efforts. thing is, unlike last week, i approached them with mad humility, like - peace god. but they weren't trying to hear it. they knew the deal. the deal was death.
i was real calm with it, stood still, moved slow. but it didn't help. they attacked anyway. guess they figured it was better dying in battle than being drowned without a fight.
got a hand like popeyes today and my next step is to apply ayurveda on it. word.
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