Yikes! We’ve been busy!
We made it out to check on the girls tonight. We were probably overdue on getting out there and switching the bottom and top hive bodies. Bees like to work in the ‘penthouse,’ as in, they tend to be clustered as high in the hive body boxes as possible. So there they are, all smashed in the top of the two hive body boxes, looking down their bee-noses at the more-empty hive body below them. We’ve had a tremendous overwintering population, and they are busting at the seems. So, we flipped the boxes around to force them to fill out the lower box. But wow – we found lots and lots and lots of bees in both boxes. We are very proud bee parents right now.
A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to bring a Des Moines Register reporter to the Dept of Ag’s hives for a photo op. An hour later Rodney White had gathered what seemed like thousands of photos and even video. The video is posted at http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120329/NEWS/303290070/Insect-invasion-lands-in-Iowa?Frontpage. Fun stuff! I guess I’ve figured out that I’m never going to make a million dollars as a model, since they’ll only take a picture of me if I have a big bee veil covering my face…
As I type this I’m listening to State Apiarist Andy Joseph (he works at the Iowa Dept of Ag) be interviewed on the April 11 Fallon Forum show, based in Des Moines. He’s doing a great job explaining the intricacies of the issues around the bee issues. He starts about 4 minutes into the recording, and that section runs about 30 minutes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzB5aNSxMtM&feature=channel&list=UL.
Idiots Keeping Bees 