I had quick visions of Bobcat Doug's story being stung over a hundred times.
The hive does not enjoy getting the sugar dusting that I occasionally give them to eliminate the risk of mites. I was half way through the sugar treatment, when the second brood box slipped from my hands. Luckily it was the top brood chamber, and not as many bees live in that chamber. The chamber landed on the bottom side down (imagine dropping a box from 18 inches and having it land upright - that's what I did today). That really got the hive stirred up. Needless to say the second sugar treatment was administered very quickly and I put the hive back and got out of their area. Much to my amazement I wasn't stung (still haven't been stung). You can see from the picture how stirred up they became and how quickly I wanted to leave the area. Tonight when its dark and they have calmed down- I will sneak up on them and put the top on correctly.
Earlier in the week, I saw a television segment on how honey bees fight off their mortal enemies the wasp and hornet. A group of wasps or hornets can easily kill 30,000 bees and rob the hive of its honey. The wasp/hornet is bigger and stronger than the bee and has a strong protective shell. Due to the hornet/wasp protective shell the honey bee can not use the stinger to kill these robbers. When a honey bee notices a wasp/hornet has come to the hive as a scout- a group of bees will get on top of the wasp/hornet and start flapping their wings to generate additional body heat. The bee can have a max internal body temp of 48 degrees Celsius (118 ) versus a wasp/hornet can only have max internal body temp of 44 degrees Celsius (111). Thus the group of bees jump on the scout and raise the internal body temp to a level that kills the invading wasp or hornet.
Finally, my mother told me that the Whitehouse has a bee hive. I doubt that Barack or Michelle has ever dropped a brood chamber while dusting.
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