Well, that didn't take long.
Yesterday, I said goodbye to a bee colony I'd had for more than two years. It was just too dwindled to protect itself against robbing. But then today, I got the call that someone had a swarm for me. Yippee! I arrived after it had been captured by our local swarm catcher extraordinaire, whose wife said this makes thirty-three swarms he's handled this season.
I picked up the box about half an hour ago, and everyone was snug and quiet. I almost doubted that they were in the nuc at all, but I put my ear to it and could hear a deep hum, and I could feel the heat from them on the box. It was a feral colony living in a tree about five feet from where it swarmed. I'm especially happy to have a local, acclimated group. I'll transfer them to my hive box tomorrow very early. They'll be able to keep the robbers at bay, so that's good.
In other suburban farming-type news, we finally confirmed where the wood rats were getting in to the shop (and attic!) and we were able to stucco the large hole closed. But not before I found a sick specimen in a patch of insulation I was removing from the shop ceiling for that very reason. I hate hate hate killing anything. I even feel twinges of guilt about ripping up weed after weed after weed. But this critter was on its way out anyway from a poison we'd used - after much research into whether it would affect secondary predators and whether it was a painful death - no to both, as far as we could determine, or we never would have used it. D. dispatched this one, although he too doesn't like having to kill anything.
It rained this evening, which was a surprise, but I think tomorrow will be dry. The 8pm howls and fireworks are getting louder and crazier. There were two or three huge BOOMs tonight. I'm telling you. It's very Star Trek red hour to me.
Nearly a quarter million deaths but over a million recoveries. I thought writing that would be a positive thing, but actually, I don't like those odds.
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