Dealing with the bees

[Understudy]

Time for some information sharing.

Since I have been on the road for so long. My hives have been a bit neglected.
I also had to do a bee presentation when I got back. I literally got off the plane and went to my hives and started to grab frames for the observation hive. There is nothing unusual about that. It was a nice and sunny day the bees seemed okay. I opened the hives and went in and lifted boxes. I checked frames. I have hive boxes placed about. And almost like a cartoon a gray cloud rushed right over my house and poured rain. I could have gone three blocks out and been out of the cloud of this rainstorm.

Now lets deal with my Myth vs Fact observations.
Myth: The bees know when it is going to rain. Their mood changes even when overcast.

Fact: This is in many cases true. I have seen it myself. There is another thread in here called overcast. And yes the bees do behave differently when it is overcast outside. However this "sunshower" which was also nothing short of a heavy deluge seem to surprise everyone, including the bees.

Myth: The bees are difficult to deal with in the rain. They all come after you and sting you.

Fact: Not exactly.They have the same behavior when you spray them with cold sugar water. They bunch up into little balls. The bees on the outide are cold and slow moving. However the bees on the inside are dry and warm, and in a bad mood.  The rainstorm caused them to ball up I was rushing to put boxes back and frames into the observation hive. Which caused the balls of bees in some cases to break apart. When those balls are broken apart by force the bees in the center come out flying mad. Remember that bees take orienterring flights so they can make note of the landmarks. Well if you aren't one of the orginal landmarks you can be in trouble. However I had two things going for me. One was the rain. Rain drops are like little missles that stop bees. So I had a mini force field to protect me from some of the onslaught.  Two, I didn't start swatting at them. I took about 15 stings. But I had about 80 bees on me. And since I was soaking wet the bees would get wet also. This slowed them down dramatically. I moved slowly and put everything back. I had my hives together and my observation hive with frames but not many bees.

The problem I ended up with was that my observation hive fogged up. I had to clean off the plexiglass so you could see the bees inside.

Now these items are subjective, but a very real time experience for me.

Now for the best part because I had the rainstorm. I had to wait to get the bees back in. It kept raining everytime I wanted to put my bees back. Except at night.

Now I have one of those nice golden knight bee suits. I put it on in this case. I have to admit the bees were actually pretty decent to deal with. I don't think I want to make a habit of going into my hives at night but I won't be as apprehensive about doing it again. I have to admit I move very slowly when I did things and I smoked heavily. But I am glad I could get everything back together.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Cindi]

Brendhan, holy smoly.  You are an incredible teller of the tale (not tall tales).  Wouldn't it just figure that that bad ol' rain cloud wanted to spoil your parade.

What an interesting event.  Sharing is great.  I still don't get how you can be so busy travelling, and then go straight into something like a bee presentation.  You blow me down.

Yeah, good for you.  Have a wonderful day, best of life and health.  Cindi

[Michael Bush]

>Myth: The bees know when it is going to rain. Their mood changes even when overcast.

They do seem to know when it's going to rain.  I've seen them flying in a misting sprinkle and hunkered down when it wasn't raining at all and then there was a downpour.  Many times.

>Myth: The bees are difficult to deal with in the rain. They all come after you and sting you.

Some hives do.  Some hives don't.  Queen rearing I've had the "opportunity" to open hives MANY times in the rain.  Most are ok, but then most of my hives are very nice and if they weren't I wouldn't tolerate it.  :)

>Now I have one of those nice golden knight bee suits. I put it on in this case. I have to admit the bees were actually pretty decent to deal with. I don't think I want to make a habit of going into my hives at night but I won't be as apprehensive about doing it again. I have to admit I move very slowly when I did things and I smoked heavily. But I am glad I could get everything back together.

The toughest thing about night is that they cling and crawl and if a lot of them do go after you, it's very difficult to get them all back off of you as they cling.