Girls Girls Girls GET WORKING!

I had a panic attack last night. I'll admit, I am prone to anxiety but I have not had full blown panic attack since going to a Melissa Etheridge concert about 7 years ago. We spent over 24 hours getting home from Istanbul and arrived home exhausted and hungry at midnight. I took a shower, ate some pizza and was in bed by 1230. At 1:15 I woke up with excruciating Charlie Horse pain that was completely paralysing in my right calf and foot. It was so intense and relentless that I started to panic. Initially I thought maybe I was having a pulmonary embolism until it started in the left leg. You can understand the logic; nurse with a little too much knowledge after a long plane ride combined with my anxiety, of course it made since to go straight to a PE. The pain went on for probably 10 minutes out of every hour for the next three hours, in both of my feet and legs. I was out of my mind by 6:00 am that I got up and sent a text to my beekeeping partner hoping to move up our trip to the bee yard. Maybe the bees would calm me down.

Mission accomplished. I don't know how they do it but here I am calm as a cucumber and no more muscle spasms. Gotta love the bees.

So the girls, what the heck? Lets start with Mr. Abbott's Little Bee. You might remember from my last post that it seemed the Queen may have gone missing. While we were gone Paula went down to check on them and found a whole lot of nothing in the box but spotted a big huge unmarked Queen. We had a Yellow Lady in that hive and saw her last on May 28th. I can't imagine she went missing and all that magic occurred. More likely she lost her marking. Anyway, the brood pattern seems to be slightly improved but the population is still low and there isn't much going on. These girls better hurry up and get to it!

Before I left I threw supers on all the hives, two each. In the two weeks I have been gone they have not done a darn thing. No comb, no nectar, no pollen, nothing to show for their time, save a bunch of burr comb in Katrina's Drone Den. I know we had a run of rain, wicked storms that knocked out a third of the farming crops in Northfield but seriously, nothing?  In addition they are not living up to their names which is good in some cases and in others no so good. For example, Katrina's Drone Den is hardly such which is a good thing but she seems to have the genetics of her cousins over in Crazy Comb. We had to clean out a tun of burr comb all over her today. We did see her Queen who seems to be loosing her white marking as well, half of it gone which is why I think maybe the marking came off the Queen in Mr. Abbott. Colleen's Royal Ruckus is hardly a ruckus. She if full of the best tempered bees ever and her Queen is going about her business. Now if only the girls would get working.

We have to reschedule our Puja as an important Tibetan Community event came up for the Monks. To be honest, as much as I was looking forward to the event I am so whipped from our trip that it feels more than just fine. When I told our land owner he was a little disappointed since the storms have taken a huge toll on his property and could really use the blessing right now! We are going to give the bees at least 10 days before checking on them again. Keep your fingers crossed I don't want another summer of slacker bees.