Daunted...

Slowly, slowly I am starting to feel daunted by the task of looking after bees. There are so many of them and they are everywhere. I can hardly pick up a frame as the bees are always there. They seem to know exactly where my hands are going to go next, and are waiting there for me, so I can gain no purchase on the wood. And I don't want to squash them all or get stung the whole time. And having my fingers covered in honey from when their rogue comb breaks does not help either...

Anyway.
I was a glorious day again and it was decidedly boiling in my beesuit, which should really be called a boiler suit. I will not go into the details; suffice to say, it was uncomfortably hot and when I finally was able to take the suit off I was surprised that there was still all of me there and that nothing had melted away.

I started with the Moon, which was brimming with bees everywhere. The super frames are nearly all drawn out and are being filled (the super is quite heavy). But they still have storage space in the brood box, so I'm not going to super up. The manipulation went all right, but there were just so many bees: in the air, on the frames, on the hive's exterior walls. The Moon bees also love propolis and there are swamps of sticky red stuff slathered all over the hive. Once again they had started drawing out the dummy board (don't the dummies know what a dummy board is and that you're meant to leave it alone?).
Saw neither queen nor eggs, but some brood and lots and lots of store. To me it looked like they were scaling back the laying and trying to get more stores ready for the winter.
Cut off some rogue comb as well as some drone cells. Rebuilding that should keep them busy, too.
Of course I was stung, this time on the left arm, surprisingly enough. No ill effects (for me, at least). Halfway through the inspection the smoker died. That added an element of fun to the proceedings, as I had no way of calming the bees or getting them to scoot.

When I closed the hive up (I think the bees were ecstatic that I finally left them again), I returned to the shed and got the smoker going again. Don't know what happened - it had enough fuel.

Bees licking the honey off my glove

The Star was much quieter. The super was barely in use and the fact that there were so much fewer bees made the inspection much more pleasant. Here I saw the queen, lots of stores again and some well laid-out brood frames. Was stung, this time on my right thumb (again). Not as bad as last time.

It was really weird while I was doing the inspection I always had a number of bees on my glove, licking the honey off them, docile and happy as can be, while around my head buzzed a few angrier bees, somehow intent on finding a hole in my veil, or something similarly disastrous. The head really didn't know what the hand was doing... But the bees on the hand were fun: I could feel them pattering over my hand through the glove and as they walked they must have been exercising their wings, for I felt the vibration of that, too. A strange sensation.
Once again I had to deal with rogue comb as well as drone comb. Is there some gentle or perfect way of doing that? My bees always get very upset when I remove some of their comb.

When I had finished the inspections I went to the equipment shed to take off the suit, clean the hive tool and store everything. I noticed that there was a solitary bee buzzing around, but wasn't too fussed by that. As soon as I had taken the suit off, she showed great interest in me and I realised she had followed me from her colony for the sole purpose of giving me one final sting. And so it was. She showed interest in my left arm and then - of course - went for my face. Had I just moved back, nothing might have happened, but of course she got trapped in my hair and a second later - zit! - there was the sting on my forehead. Needed that like a, well, like a pain in the head...

I think the bees will be happy that I'm gone the next 10 days.