Hot bees

We woke up this morning to the falling rain. After starting the coffee, I stepped over to the garden door and looked across the garden toward the barn. A light mist hovered just above the grass, making the field look ghostly.

Wednesday is the day I write my weekly column for the paper, so I took the laptop out onto the screen porch to work.

After finishing the first draft, I had several (no contact) errands to run, so I put on my hat and hustled to the truck.

Jilda had lunch ready when I returned. After that, we treated ourselves to a nap. Life always seems better after a nap.

Sure enough, when we woke up, the clouds had moved off to the south. It didn't take long for the atmosphere to get steamy.

I walked down to the bee yard to check on the girls. One of the hives had a beard of bees hanging off the front. The hive was a swarm that I'd captured, so it started out with fewer bees than the other hives, so I narrowed the entrance gap. This makes it easier for worker bees to defend the colony against robbing from yellow jackets, wasps, and honeybees from competing hives.

I thought the hive was vented from the bottom, but when I checked, it was one of the older hives I bought in the beginning. With rising temps, no screened bottom board, and a reduced entrance, I knew immediately that the bees in the colony weren't getting enough air.

I put on my bee suit and returned to the hive and removed the entrance reducer. You could the pitch of their humming changed.

Later, when I walked back, there weren't as many bees hanging out front.

Walking back through the garden, Jilda was picking squash for supper. She called to me to say the girls had finally found the Old Maid flowers in our garden. I snapped a picture for you to see.