Monday, February 23, 2009

Spring cleaning bees and bats

Yesterday, my husband deemed the time was right to change the floors in the beehives. Because we use varroa floors (basically wire mesh) to help control the varroa mite, they do have to be cleaned as the bees can not do it.
Normally I try to get my husband to do the job... Grumpy bees and all that. However, I also wanted to discover about the possibility of mice. Far better for me to do it as it would have been my fault....

The bees were sluggish until I moved the hive and then they began to get active. Why, oh why when you are just about to do something difficult does the smoker go out? With the weather starting to cloud over and become cold, there was no hope of abandoning and waiting for the smoker to start. I just had to keep going on with the operation. Success was measured in two clean hive floors, no mice and most importantly no stings... Of course, the smoker started belching out smoke and the sun beat down, the instant I got back to the garden room.

My husband decided to make the bat box more secure and so we had a bat flying about the garden in bright sunlight. It swooped low over the garden for awhile and then we think went back to the box. My husband and youngest son both commented that they did not think there was a bat in the bat box and it could have been just the first flight of Spring. I begged to differ.

3 comments:

Carol Townend said...

Hi Michelle,
Am so glad your bees are ok! Not so sure that you have seen the last of the mole though...
Strange things happen in gardens when you are not looking. We have a bit of a grim garden mystery. A few days ago we noticed that the compost in one of our clay pots had been disturbed. Thought it was just one of the local squirrels hunting for bulbs to eat. Anyhow, was having a sort out yesterday and was tipping the used compost out and out fell a dead bird! Yuk. It was a white dove, poor thing. Now I am wondering who put it there and why. It couldn't possibly have been in the compost all through last summer, surely I would have noticed when potting up the geraniums??!
All best
Carol

Cheryl St.John said...

Is the bat box a refuge for bats? I confess I've only heard if them in a children's book. LOL

Michelle Styles said...

Carol -- that is a mystery. I suppose it could havebeen a cat...

Cheryl -- bat box is a house/refuge for a bat. It looks a bit like a nest box/bird house but has no floor, just a slender opening which they fly up into and a place to hang from...