Saturday we set up the LBKA stall at Brockwell Park at the crack of dawn, then I went off to collect honey jars and then came back to the allotment apiary to meet the students. I had collected 4 laying queens the night before from by buddies who have the fancy breeder queens and I was keen to get them into hives, so I met up with the students, even though the weather wasn't great.
All was going OK. We found queens and squished them and then I put the new queen with the plastic tabs still in the cage into the top supers. (I will put them into the brood boxes at the weekend.) All was going well until we got to Mrs Cyprus, whom has been great, but the colony has become over defensive, particualrly in bad weather. Short story is I didn't do up my veil and ended up with hunderds of angry Mrs Cyprus' progeny inside stinging me in the hair, on neck, under chin on face, on ears. We tried to get them off with the smoker, but they were following and stinging more, so in the end I plunged my head into the dirty water butt.
Thank goodness I wasn't on my own. We pulled out the stings and I took a big dose of anti histamines, but the severe allergic reaction was starting. My lips were swollen and tingling. My hands and feet were really red and itching, despite no stings on them. I came home and took some more fast acting anti histamines and the reaction eventually started to reverse. That was another close shave. I was still washing bees out of my hair 2 days later.
I did a triathlon on Sunday. My neck was swollen like a Charolais bull due to the stings. The wetsuit was tight around my neck. I felt too exhausted to do the bees afterwards. I thought that was probably partly due to the amount of venom they must have injected into me.
Monday I had a day off and was super grateful that one of my bee buddies agreed to help me inspect the bees. To be honest I just didn't fancy going back into the big defensive colony on my own. All OK at the allotment except one nuc certainly has chalk brood. I requeened it. There is still no honey crop at the allotment.
At the wasteground the last colony we looked at had ripe queen cells and no sign of unsealed brood or eggs. Either she got squashed at the last inspection or she swarmed, but because she was clipped just was left on the ground when the bees found she couldn't fly and went back into the colony. The former hypothesis seems more likely. We took a mated queen out of one of the nucs and put her into the hive after breaking down all the queen cells. They would have swarmed if we hadn't caught them.
I plan to replace this queen with one of the fancy queens. At the wasteground it is still looking like there will be quite a lot of honey. Fingers crossed.
All was going OK. We found queens and squished them and then I put the new queen with the plastic tabs still in the cage into the top supers. (I will put them into the brood boxes at the weekend.) All was going well until we got to Mrs Cyprus, whom has been great, but the colony has become over defensive, particualrly in bad weather. Short story is I didn't do up my veil and ended up with hunderds of angry Mrs Cyprus' progeny inside stinging me in the hair, on neck, under chin on face, on ears. We tried to get them off with the smoker, but they were following and stinging more, so in the end I plunged my head into the dirty water butt.
Thank goodness I wasn't on my own. We pulled out the stings and I took a big dose of anti histamines, but the severe allergic reaction was starting. My lips were swollen and tingling. My hands and feet were really red and itching, despite no stings on them. I came home and took some more fast acting anti histamines and the reaction eventually started to reverse. That was another close shave. I was still washing bees out of my hair 2 days later.
I did a triathlon on Sunday. My neck was swollen like a Charolais bull due to the stings. The wetsuit was tight around my neck. I felt too exhausted to do the bees afterwards. I thought that was probably partly due to the amount of venom they must have injected into me.
Monday I had a day off and was super grateful that one of my bee buddies agreed to help me inspect the bees. To be honest I just didn't fancy going back into the big defensive colony on my own. All OK at the allotment except one nuc certainly has chalk brood. I requeened it. There is still no honey crop at the allotment.
At the wasteground the last colony we looked at had ripe queen cells and no sign of unsealed brood or eggs. Either she got squashed at the last inspection or she swarmed, but because she was clipped just was left on the ground when the bees found she couldn't fly and went back into the colony. The former hypothesis seems more likely. We took a mated queen out of one of the nucs and put her into the hive after breaking down all the queen cells. They would have swarmed if we hadn't caught them.
I plan to replace this queen with one of the fancy queens. At the wasteground it is still looking like there will be quite a lot of honey. Fingers crossed.
Hope you're feeling better soon!
