I picked up my third nuc from Hive Depot in Rhode Island. Erica and I drove up Cumberland Saturday morning. Erica printed out the list of garage sales so that we could wander about if we wanted to.
We got to the Paul’s house about noon, but no one was home. The back yard had several nucs scattered about the back yard plus three hives, each with several supers. I opened the nucs, and they all looked pretty good, but there was one nuc of Italians that seemed to have more bees than the other. This was the “strong” colony that Paul was talking about.
We rode around, looking at a surprisingly bad bunch of garage sales for about an hour, and we each had a slice of Rhode Island pizza for lunch. It was good, but coming from New York, not what I would call real pizza. When we got back to Paul’s house, he was there and I bought the nuc. I was concerned because he had the nuc open and, although it had been raining lightly off and on, there were a lot of bees out and about hunting nectar. I had to abandon them, and the nuc would be a little light as a result. I was tempted to buy one of the weaker nucs. If Paul could have sold me the wood, I would have bought one, but he had no spare hive boxes.
When I got home I put on the bee veil and gloves and opened the nuc. Boy, were they mad! Bees don’t like being in the back of bouncing truck for three and half hours. I transferred the frames to the Martha hive and set the nuc on its side near the hive entrance. When I came back in an hour, there was a lump of bees in the bottom of the nuc. The queen must have fallen out when I transferred the frames to the hive. I dumped them onto the top of the frames and they seemed all right after that.
On Sunday, there was some good weather, sunny and in the high mid 60s. The hive was doing well and there were even some girls returning with pollen to the hive. They were drinking the sugar from the front feeder, but I did not see any of them using the top feeder.
Today my medium frames arrive so I can start putting the supers on the hives. UPS showed them leaving Secaucus, NJ over the weekend so I guess the truck will drop them off this morning.
While checking my bees on Sunday, one of the girls from the Ethel hive landed in my hair and got tangled. I tried to comb it out with my fingers and the poor thing stung me in the soft flesh between the fingers. My hand swelled up a bit and itches. It didn’t hurt that much, but it itches more than any mosquito bite I’ve ever had. My middle finger on the right hand is stiff so it is hard to type. That was only my second sting in a month of beekeeping, but both bees were from the Ethel hive.
