Got up this morning at the ungodly hour of 6:00 so I could do the bees with Zaga before she went to the dog park at 7:30, and I set up as one of the apiary stops on the 2017 Tour de Hives. The hives are all healthy, but only one of the three Langs is showing any build-out of the frames in the super. The brood boxes are crammed full of bees, brood, nectar and a small amount of capped honey, but the bees just won't move upstairs!
I started my inspections at 6:50 when it was finally light enough to see, with the TopBar hive. It was a warmish, very humid morning, and right off the bat (within five minutes of opening the hive) I got stung above my left elbow. Great. After last time there was no way I was going to continue my inspections without full cover-up gear so I went into the pump house and put it all on. It was already 80 degrees at 7:00 AM so I was pretty much miserable. The bees weren't too happy either, and I heard later today (from a lady who stopped by on the tour) that it's not good to check your hives when it's either humid or windy because the bees will be cranky. Cranky bees = more stings. I don't know if it's true in general, but it was definitely true this morning. I was very happy I suited up because all but one of the hives were really aggressive.
I am still feeding everyone as all the hives have a lot of capped brood which will be hatching soon (needing food and ready to make more wax for the hives), and there wasn't much nectar or capped honey in any of them (and it's the dearth-of-flowers, dog-days-of-summer).
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