Walking up to the hive
Younkers. I put so much love into this hive. I remember it like yesterday. Here is how the hive looked on 9/11/2014:
Day 1 in their new home. What a happy ending.
Younkers didn’t even make it to Day 300. Here is Younkers on 3/9/15:
That junk on the bottom board — that’s comb and bee parts and mouse poop.
It was living in the bottom deep, but when I started moving woodenware around, it moved to the upper deep. It was the longest, tannest, biggest mouse I’ve seen in the wild. (I mostly remember small gray mice.)
the mouse in silhouette. i think it is between the frames, trying to hide from me.
After I removed the frame with the mouse on it, I gave it a big forehand swing that launched it into the woods. Then I cleaned out the box and packed it out.
It ate the frame! It ate the comb!
The mouse hadn’t touched the upper deep that was full of honey. The super above that was also full of honey and untouched. I was very impressed with the speed at which Younkers made comb and honey.
Everything eaten away. Ugh.
The mouse (mice?) left comb hanging from the top bars of a couple frames, so now I have this sitting in my house.
This honeycomb is roughly 8.5 x 11 x 1.5 inches
It fell on the grass and is pretty dirty on the other side. I think I’m going to save it for spring. I’ll put it on the bottom bar of a frame and use rubber bands to keep it in place, then give it a colony of bees.