August proved to be yet another learning experience in the way of beekeeping. I have been getting much more comfortable working the hives and it seems to please the bees, as they have become so gentle and docile while I am there.
Just as they and I were really finding our groove together, yet another challenge arose. After all the rain from Debbie, the town decided to do aerial spraying for mosquitoes. This can be incredibly devastating to the bees (among so many other things!) and it comes with no warning. I arrived to check on my hives and was met with just a blanket of dead bees covering the ground. I knew instantly what had happened and began reaching out to my contacts to see what could be done. I began feeding the bees sugar water as a supplement to the nectar they were collecting to give them a boost, but there wasn’t much else to be done other than clean up and hope they’d bounce back.
I will be watching them closely in the coming weeks to ensure the larvae inside the hive have not been affected and I have decided to hold off on harvesting anything until I can get a better grasp on the effects. I truly think the bees will be able to bounce back from this (this time) as they had great numbers in population.