Here is a picture of my new hive of Golden Italian Honeybees. Her name is Justine (Gooch for short).
I installed the packages Friday morning and this picture is from Sunday morning. She seems strong and has now consumed 5 quarts of sugar water. The bees convert this to comb and eventually honey. I will check the hive to see that the queen got out of her cage OK on Tuesday.
I saw workers returning to the hive with pollen – a very good sign.
I was stung 4 times trying to get Justine to go into the box. One bee even stayed on my back and stung Erica when I came back to the house.
12 Comments
I take it the name idea comes from the fact that this bunch is kind of ornery? I want a sample of the honey from this hive by the end of the summer!
Oh no, we just like the name.
There may be some honey from this hive in the fall. We’ll see how she survives the summer. The bees need a good supply of honey for themselves to make it through the winter so you have to leave enough for them. Anything extra I will take and make sure that you get a couple of bottles.
You receive a new package of bees every year… Does that mean that they die within 12 months of their purchase?
Last year I bought three packages. One died. This year I bought two so now I have four beehives.
It is not uncommon for a few hives to die over the winter. There is a crisis now with bees. Mysteriously large numbers of bees are dying. I am lucky that only one hive died. Many beekeepers lost all of their hives.
Just like the name, eh? I would believe that if the hive’s nickname weren’t Gooch!
Besides, if you are just picking names you like, why not name one of the hives Erica? I assume because she would kill you if you did!
I am sure Erica would be proud to have a nest of angry bees named after her.
I wonder. How many of your science fiction stories involve someone meeting aliens that look like bees, some character being a bee-keeper, or humans living in a hive as bees do?
I ask because I’ve heard that writers who are also armature chefs, always have their character baking something.
Erica keeps telling me I should write about the bees, but so far I have only written one story based on bees. I put the story on the site so you can read it.
The Telling
(as a side note)
When is the “rubber suit” test going to be done? Can you post one or two of the questions now?
I wrote about 30 questions that I want to include in a quiz program. I have to write another 30 or so, but then I have to write the program.
My job is making it more difficult to write. There was a time when I could spend all day at a story or a website and not be bothered, but I have been pulled into the design and development of a new Government website and I am almost constantly in meetings. When I am not in meetings there are people nagging me to write opinions, design specs, and memos.
I am getting too old for this crap.
I will try to get to it. You gave me enough ideas to keep me busy for a year, I don’t know when I can sneak some real writing in between the phony memos.
*When I am not in meetings there are people nagging me to write opinions […] I am getting too old for this crap […] You gave me enough ideas to keep me busy for a year.*
Sorry, I didn’t know.
I just figured that you made your living from selling stories and bee’s honey. If you want me to stop bugging you, I can.
I am very happy that you make comments. It is nice to get think about things other than java code and network diagrams.
I am just grouchy about work, not about you or the website. I wish I could spend all of my time writing stories and raising bees. This having to work for a living sucks.
I hope to retire in a few years and write a novel. I have a couple of novels started and I think they would be a good read.
I stopped writing in my twenties because I had to go to school at night and work all day. I was told that I had to have a real job. Well, my real job has paid the bills for 30 years, but when I started writing again, it took a few years to get to the point where I could write a decent story.
Now I really resent that I am wasting my time writing computer programs when I could be writing stories.