Feel Better:Complain About Anything, page-14473

Ours are along our drive facing north. They are fine if you don't interrupt their flight path but will get angry if they are hungry. We haven't had rain for months and they prefer the pair of big Chinese water pots, which are either side of the front entrance. It's amazing to sit on the verandah and watch them. I realise most are using our 2 ponds but I think you appreciate their hard work (and honey) and how industrious they are if you choose a spot to watch their progress. My husband is in the process of extracting 4 or 5 queen cells from a lovely gentle hive. We haven't done it before and while I don't like the possibility of killing them, the bees will kill them anyway when they choose the lucky one. We have done the re-queening by themselves and it has worked OK. We will be doing a couple of splits this weekend and it gets less stressful each time. It's quite hot up here in a bee suit. We checked the hives a couple of days ago and have about 12 frames of honey to extract after we do the splits. We bought a flow hive last Christmas and it has been interesting experience. Our Langstroth hives certainly yield much more honey than the flow hive but it is interesting to see them at work. I think they generate more heat than the Langstroth's and we have a foam insulated top cover for it. Our beekeeping association had a chap from Nuplas at our last meeting and while I am not a lover of plastic, their hives look great. So I think Santa will have one on his list. I could go on for days about the benefits of beekeeping.