Beautiful Day!

We've been cold and miserable, but in true fashion, Texas delivered a 60 degree day!  The sun was shining.  We had a light wind.  It was awesome.

Except for two things...

1. I'm supposed to be getting things caught up and in order for Thanksgiving next week.  All of those chores are indoors and boring.
2. I had bee chores begging for my attention.

One would think this is a win/win.  

Ditch the housework and get outside!

I did ditch the indoor chores, but I didn't really enjoy myself outside.  I managed to run around and feed all of my bees, checking for evidence of survival.  Most of this went well, except the girls were a little unpleasant today.  I mean, seriously, how much fun is it to hang around a bunch of cranky women?  This meant my feeding stops all went very quickly.  I had bees trying to hitch a ride in the truck.  I had bees stuck on my suit.  I had bees constantly buzzing in my ear.  I started getting hot.  My new haircut was getting in my face.  I was fogging up my sunglasses.  It was crazy.

It didn't take long for me to get cranky.

I made my rounds at the house last.  I just wanted to be done.  Please, force me inside to clean house!  That's when I noticed something off.  I had a hive that was relatively small, but there seemed to be a lot of activity around it.  I was pretty certain a population boom wasn't the explanation.  I grabbed the smoker and lit it up.  It took all of two seconds to see the hive in question had not made it through the cold snap.  Without bees to defend the hive, all the neighboring bees were having a field day.

Thieves!

It's sort of sad, but that hive has struggled since the beginning.  I hate to lose one, but this one didn't really surprise me.  I had sort of expected it.  Since I had the smoker going, I went ahead and popped the lid on a few more hives I had been concerned about.  I'm happy to report they are doing great.  I did manage to move some hives around and grab some panels to put up in the pasture.  Trying to prepare for the next cold snap ahead of time.  I have two hives by the driveway that I am moving to the pasture tonight.

Joy!

Moving bees in the dark.

My favorite thing to do.

All in all, I have accomplished some big tasks today, but my mood is foul and has paid the price.  My hair's still in my face, and now I smell like a bee smoker.  I see a hot bath, a hot cup of tea, and an early night in my near future.