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   Honeybees have an idea on how the world is supposed to work. If a beekeeper has a plan that coincides with what the bees have in mind, everybody is happy. If not, the bees will do what they want no matter what a person does. Honeybees are very particular about space. They need space to store honey, space for pollen and nectar, and most importantly, they need enough space for the queen to lay eggs to produce more workers.   

   At this time of year, there is an abundance of flowers. In anticipation of this bounty, the queen has been producing over a thousand eggs per day. In short order, these eggs make more workers who gather pollen and nectar and make honey. Because of all these factors, a beekeeper needs to check their hives about once per week at this time of year.

   This spring, I had one hive that I carried through the winter. As the weather warmed and pollen started to be produced by trees in the area, the queen in this one hive started to lay eggs in copious numbers. I knew before long, we would have a population explosion and the queen would split the hive into two hives by taking most of her workers and leaving. The young bees left behind would make a new queen and most likely form a successful hive but would not produce enough honey during the first year to have excess to be harvested. To prevent my queen from forming a swarm and leaving, I took two frames of eggs and larvae along with a frame of pollen and honey and put them into a new hive box. There were a large number of young nurse bees that went into the new hive. They would make a new queen and soon mature into worker bees that would go out and gather pollen to make the honey. In about three weeks, the new queen started laying eggs. My split was successful.

   On doing my weekly inspection on Sunday, I discovered the split hive was filling up quickly. Knowing we have hundreds of acres of white clover and trefoil in bloom right now, I know that many bees can fill every corner with honey and run out of space in a hurry.

   I added  what is called a super to the hive. This almost doubles their space and gives them plenty of room to store honey while several frames in the main hive body can be used for eggs and raising the young.

   My original hive where I stole the brood for the split, was packing in the honey. Several frames for egg laying still had plenty of room but space was going to get tight for honey storage. I was not planning to harvest any honey until fall, but just to help them out, I decided to pull two frames and spin out the honey, giving the bees two more full frames for storage.

   With my wife’s help, we were able to jar 1.25 gallons from the two frames. We were also able to make everything in the area sticky. It is amazing to see and feel the large area that can be covered with a very small amount of spilled honey. Removing the frames from the hive, I got a little bit of honey on my hands. Despite doing my best to lick it off, I was able to transfer small amounts to the steering wheel and gear shift of the side-by-side as well as the door handle to the garage. De-capping the frames caused a small amount to drop on the floor. We were able to track this over most of the garage and front porch. Bottling in the kitchen enabled most of the surfaces in the kitchen to become sticky. Cleaning up was definitely the most work of anything involved in the process.

   The only casualty of the day was I received a sting from a bee whose plans for the day did not include a trip to the house. She was annoyed and took it out on me.

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