not quite fearless

Going into the hive last week, I was apprehensive after the previous two stings. I have adapted my veil so that it is easier to get on and off and I am trying to see it as way cool to wear bee gear rather than a sign of weakness or lack of beekeeping skills. I suppose I could think of it as wearing sturdy shoes when doing woodworking so that a hammer does not clobber your toe (something I don't always do). The girls were active and have been productive in a way that is both wonderful and difficult. The super was full of burr comb, (lumps of freeform honeycomb that the bees build in any gap they can find). I need to scrape the comb off because it messes up the artificial order that I am imposing on the hive and makes it hard to move the frames around. Between the burr comb and the propolis (a gooey gluey substance made from tree sap) that they fill EVERY space between the frames with, everything was attached to everything else. Within moments my fingers were sticking to each other and I was struggling to move things around without crushing the girls. It is a horrible sound when a frame slips and slams against a neighboring frame, smushing bee mass into bee mass. It sounds kind of like a saw starting up, a wusshhing sound of sorts. I could see the direct results of my smoking the bees and it is true that it makes them gorge themselves on honey, thinking that they will need to flee the hive. I could see their panic as they buried their bodies into the cells. The chunks of burr comb are filled with nectar still, not honey, as the water has not been evaporated from it yet. I found that if you treat a chunk of it like gum, the nectar oozes out and fills your mouth with sweetness. The waxy lump left will be melted down at some point once I figure out what to do with it.
The frog in Matt's hand is included in the bee blog as he is a neighbor of the bees and possible friend.