Nasty bees

Thanks to an EFB outbreak locally I have an inspection booked with the seasonal bee inspector on Thursday, so I thought I’d take the time to have a quick check over of the hives beforehand. I opened the first hive and they were really not happy. Having gone through the upper brood box I reached the point where there were so many bees on my veil that I couldn’t see the frames clearly so decided to close up and call it a day.

The bees had not had enough however. I had to drive around a hundred metres with all the windows open before it was safe to take off my suit and gloves. That may be down to the oilseed rape that is going over in the field just over the road from them, but even so it needs to stop. Once the inspector has been I’ll be looking at requeening to get some more pleasant genes into the colony.

I contacted the SBI to let her know what to expect, which seems only fair. She suggested we wait until next week to do the inspection, when the weather is supposed to be better and they might have calmed down a little.

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