Planned Regicide

It's not late but I am the only one in the house that's awake. My right eye is swollen and getting more swollen(er) by the hour. A courtesy of one of my lady bee friends when I had the audacity to plant a few more sunflowers 5 or 10 feet from her hot hive. Hot hives are colonies of bees that have a queen that's genetics create a higher level of defensiveness in her worker bees. Defensiveness is code for aggressive. Like, you get out of your car that you parked in the driveway and you have to sprint to the house to get to safety. I had another hot hive a few months ago and it was a whole thing.

I didn't plan to become a beekeeper. A friend was like, hey can I put a hive box of honey bees in your garden? Of course I said yes. Bees are so cool. That was 3 years ago. It's a good hobby for me because it's very detailed and fiddly and I find it very interesting. For instance, there's a job for older bees and it's called the undertaker and their job is to collect dead bees from the hive and take them out, not dropping them- but placing them on the ground outside. They place them carefully on the ground! Bees. 

I also learned that colonies keep queens only at their leisure. If they don't like her, they replace her by taking one of her new eggs and growing it in a special way so it will develop into a queen.  Also the male honeybees, drones- don't make honey or take care of the hive at all. They literally are there to breed with the queen maybe and also eat. They are bigger than their sisters and they cannot even sting since they were not born with a stinger. They are big and fuzzy and harmless. This is not an analysis of gender, it's just how it is for bees.  Also thank you for appreciating my apiary (bee yard) but it is not helping native bees. There are actually no native honeybees in North America. All the honeybees are imported. 

That's what happens when I start talking about bees. I just start rattling off facts like an overeager 8 year old talking about the new Roblox rollout. 

Let's go back to my defensive colony. I got rid of the last last hot queen. A beekeeping friend came and took her and half of her hive away. When I put in the queen I ordered online into the colony, they embraced her and immediately chilled out. The sound when I crack the hive is so chill. No stings. No shooting out of the top box when I crack it open for an inspection. It is magical because I had never had to suffer with a hot hive. Then, I started getting stung again by defender bees from a colony I split last spring from the OG hot hive (That's when you take out eggs and honey and bees from one colony and put them in another box so they will "grow" a new queen.) Needless to say the colony is just like the other, huge and kicking with bees and honey but also, hot.

So yesterday I decided I will have to put her down. It's too late in the season really to re-queen but I will put her in alcohol and shake the other bees of her colony into the other hives so they can live their lives. Maybe it doesn't sound like a big deal but I sat with that other hot hive for 4 months, just hoping the colony would chill and be nice and stop stinging us. I fed them, I treated for mites with Oxalic acid , I was very slow and deliberate in my inspections and they remained so seemingly angry. This process of keeping bees has been a highly spiritual adventure to me (I will write more about that another time) but also it's agriculture and I am going to have to put my big girl pants on and take care of it. For the good of my neighbors and passers by my street and even my own swollen eyelid.  So when you see me and ask me about my bees, know I am doing what it takes to be a responsible beekeeper. Even if it means breaking my own heart and committing regicide. I will keep you posted.