Tom Sonday

The blimp-like swelling from the yellow jacket sting of a week ago is now gone, and both my eyes are wide open. On this brilliantly sunny fall day in Michigan, it is good to see everything (clearly) again.

It was fairly amazing to me how large the right side of my face swelled; it is fairly amazing that it is all back to normal a week later. And, it is fun to run into people who saw it a week ago, because I love hearing “wow, your face looks great!”

As faithful blob readers may recall, none of our five beehives made it through the winter last year. Thus, this year Rose and I extensively researched how to winterize bees. We even had two planning meetings over breakfast at a local restaurant, and have coffee stains on our beekeeping books to prove it. Today was an almost-warm fall day. It was time to start to put the bees to bed for the winter.

One of the highly recommended winterizing acts is to drill a 3/8-inch hole in the second story of each hive for ventilation. Rose drew the short straw and got to pierce the side of the home of tens of thousands of stinging insects with a power tool. While we were both suited up, I’m a bit nervous around anything that buzzes these days, and thus stood back a little as she did this. OK, I stood back alot.

Five of the hives were not amused by the steel bit augering through their walls; three of the hives didn’t really seem to care. Coincidentally, these were the same three hives that have scarely consumed any of the sugar syrup we’ve been feeding all of them, and the same three hives where activity has been minimal. This was a bit disconcerting.

Working from west to east, we removed the feeders from each hive, installed entrance reducers to (go ahead — guess!) reduce the size of the entrances, and topped each hive with a thicker lid. There were so many bees flying about these first five hives — landing on my face mask and staring at me — that I knew whatever football games they were watching in the hive must not’ve been that interesting. (Sure enough, the Detroit Lions lost again.)

And then we got to the sixth hive, where there wasn’t much activity. Hives seven and eight were substantially worse — we saw maybe only a hundred bees in each one. At this time of year, it will be impossible for the bees to generate sufficient numbers to make it through the winter. It was with great sadness that Rose and I realized that we’ve already lost three of eight hives, and the challenges of winter haven’t even begun.

So what happened? We have no idea. The bees still there were working away, so there’s no obvious health issues. Beekeeping requires removing the frames and checking each one early fall, and it is possible when we did that that we accidentally smashed the queen bee. But, “rolling the queen” (as it is called) — doubtful that we would’ve done that in three hives. The queens may have been weak; there may be disease in the hive; we’ll never know.

And what happens to the 100-or-so bees in each hive? Well, that’s really sad. Nature will take its course, and they’ll probably freeze to death as their numbers dwindle … surrounded by the loaded frames of golden goodness that they manufactured all summer. Integrating them into other hives at this point isn’t an option, nor is bringing them in their furry cuteness into my house. We have no other choice than to let them “bee with Tom,” a thought which gives us some comfort.

So, in counting our blessings, we’re looking at the 40-50 deep frames of honey that won’t get consumed this winter. In about a month we’ll take apart and clean up those hives — maybe we’ll find a note explaining what happened.

And, in three months, we’ll order more bees for next spring, and be able to welcome them with a honey of a gift to their new homes.

Recently departed bee-loved bees — I hope you and Tom are hanging out together.