Angry Bees

We've been amazed at how docile our bees are, even when we're routing around in their house. I've often wondered if they've had too much aggression bred out of them and if they would actually defend themselves against real attackers. That question was answered yesterday.

Kerstin was moving some cinder blocks in the area around the hive as he does every time he mows and was stung 4 times in rapid succession. Luckily Alden was not in the area and Kerstin had the presence of mind to run away like a big sissy. Not so luckily, one of the workers really jammed her stinger into Kerstin's hand, which swelled up like an inflated latex glove on the ring finger and pinky side.
We suspected that the bees were being robbed. This happens when workers from another colony decide that it's better to take honey from a weaker colony than collect their own nectar. The marauders either kill or sneak past the guard bees at the entrance and run roughshod though the hive, ripping open capped comb and stinging those who get in their way. The way to deal with robbing is to reduce the entrance to the hive and trap the offenders inside where they can get their asses handed to them by the angry colony. Kerstin set out the entrance reducer and crammed some grass in the crevices. We were then to wait until nightfall when all the workers would return to the hive and place a wet blanket around the hive, further sealing it and masking the smell of alarm pheromones which attract robbers. However, when we went out last night to put the blanket on, we were met with this:
There was skunk munching away on our poor bees under the hive. No wonder they're so pissed off! We chased the punk away and baited our havaheart trap with cat food (supposedly most attractive to skunks). I've since learned that skunks will scratch at the entrance of a hive to agitate the bees, and then eat them as they come out of the entrance or as they crawl under the screened bottom of the hive. We didn't catch the skunk in our trap last night, but we're going to shut the bees in their hive completely tonight so that the skunk can't get to them and see if we can get it tonight. We may need to lock up our bees at night for a while until we're sure the skunk (or skunks?!) is gone. Lessons learned for next year - put the hives on stands at least 18 inches off the ground so the skunks can't reach them. They're up on cinder blocks for this reason, but we only did 12 inches and it clearly wasn't high enough to protect them. We've also fenced off the underside of the hive with chicken wire so the skunk can't get underneath it.

The trouble is that early fall (i.e NOW) is the time to treat for varroa mites and our bees are much to angry to let us get anywhere near them. Kerstin and I can only work our bees on the weekends, so we had no choice but to medicate while the bees were riled up. For the first time since we've owned bees, we had to suit up completely to approach them and smoked them liberally. Kerstin removed the top two supers, and our livid bees immediately dive bombed us as I fumbled with the pads (we're using Mite Away Quick Strips this year). It seemed to take an eternity to put them down on the frames and close the hive up, but I think it took less than 30 seconds in actuality. I didn't get stung, but Kerstin got stung on a little strip of flesh above his wrist that was exposed by his cuff as he lifted the hive.

Now we know the fury our bees can summon, it makes me appreciate their normally gentle nature that much more. We just need to take care of this *#&ing skunk to get back to baseline.