I started last Friday pulling supers and extracting. Trying to get that over before school starts next week. I would pull during the day and extract until about 1 or 2 at night. I have found that if I leave the supers outside they stayed warmer and ran better than stacked on my basement floor. So I would put a stack of about 9 or 10 with a lid on the bottom and one on the top to keep the home bees at bay. I would then pull one off and set it on some saw horses and finish blowing them out with my air compressor. Then take them in and do the deal. This was working well and the little six frame extractor would finish up as I would be ready, especially running careful because a lot of new comb.
Took care of some business on Monday, wanted to get out of the basement, and pulled the rest on Tuesday and started a little that night. Well that's when things got funky in the land of milk and honey. My oldest came in took a shower and said they were some bees in their bathroom. I said in a smart alec way, of course their bees in the house because butterflies didn't make all that honey in the basement. He somehow managed to get tangled up in a project this week, another story.
I grab my coffee that had been cooling and strutted down the basement steps. I turned the corner and couldn't believe my eyes and ears. The door had came open where I had forgotten the hose outside. and there were bees everywhere. I couldn't tell what color 25 empty supers were. The windows were black with bees on the doors. I quickly held my breath and went for the door and of couse the hose would tangle on something. Finally got the door closed. The bees would accumulate on the window until the mass would get so heavy the would all fall off in five gallon bucket fulls. I was speechless, and a little afraid. I knew that having twenty hives here at home wasn't a good idea and now I know why.
Well after an half of letting the windows load up and then opening the opposite door and blowing them out with the compressor, I was ready to trade that cold coffee in for a cold beer and get started. So feeling better about myself and my genius move save my house to make up for the screw up of the previous night I lay into the first super of the day. I pop the lid off the stack and and one single bee that had been trapped over night went straight for my eye, got me in the lid. I couldn't help but think I just fought a war with a Camary trunk full of bees and here's one single little bee that took out Goliath. Go to the mirror got out the stinger and grab beer number two.
Finally get to business and the visitors start dropping by and explain the swollen eye story begins. Twelve o'clock, sevenish beers and several supers later I'm looking at the last four in the driveway. I decide to finish them. I said to myself out loud don't forget to pull that hose in before quitting for the night.
Two thirty comes and I am bent over getting the last frame out and I hear something sniffing by my foot. I look down through my half swollen eye and its a skunk lapping up dead bees. I jump behind a stack of supers trying to get my wits about me. I start making a bunch of noise and yelling get out of my house over and over, while beating on the pipe that goes up and supports the floor under my wifes bed. She comes down and sees a honey soaked swollen eyed madman looking like Jack Nicholson in The Shining yelling get out of my house. The skunk was a young one and apparently had not learned English yet just kept sucking up dead bees from the previous battle. It finally got scared and went under the shelf and balled up. This repeated over and over trough half my basement. On the bright side I found several items I had misplaced over the years.
After two hours of hide and go seek, prodding a skunk with a broom handle and retreating, and a lot of watch and wait. We lured it out the door with bologna without getting sprayed. Daylight begins breaking in the east and the wife goes ahead to work and I go to bed. At ten the phone rings and a produce guy wants to buy some honey. I was all for it until he tried to hammer me after I gave him my rock bottom price. I probably wasn't very nice especially with a hangover and my eye mattered together.
Sorry about the long post, I guess I had to see it in writing to belive it myself
I posted this in general beekeeping hoping someone could learn from my mistakes.
