Solace at Cripple Creek

What a disheartening week!

First we decided that one of our beehives isn’t going to survive, and we need to clean it out and store the frames of drawn-out beeswax for next year. Lots of bees will die (although they would anyway), but some of the workers will survive as they migrate to the surviving hive. Apparently, if the workers arrive at the other hive with some nectar or pollen, the guard bees will let them right in. And there’s really no other choice for the workers, as their hive won’t be there anymore.

Then we entered our other hive, which swarmed twice two weeks ago, and discovered that they are queenless. We ordered a [Minnesota hygienic Italian, developed by Dr. Marla Spivak] queen from Busy Bee apiaries in Chapel Hill, NC . They agree that requeening in the fall is a good varroa management technique (no queen for a few days or a week means a break in bee brood availability for the mites), so they have queens available this time of year. The queen should arrive via mail tomorrow or Thursday. If you’re wondering, we pick her up at the post office.

swarm leaving the hive

And last, two of our rabbit does kindled yesterday and today. They both made nests of straw and fur in the nest boxes we gave them. But both of them had at least a few of the kits on the floor of the hutch. The first doe had three dead kits on the hutch floor and two live kits in the nest. Because two survived in the same litter — and the night temperatures are around 60 for the next few nights — they should be warm enough. The second doe had four dead kits on the hutch floor and four dead kits (one a runt) in the nest. All but one of the kits seemed well-formed and full size. Nevertheless, 11 kits died. It was truly sad to dispose of them.  The second doe, who now has no kits, resumed her nest-building behavior today. I replaced her nest box, partly out of a feeling of sympathy (although I’m not sure that rabbits feel grief over the death of yet more kits), partly out of a feeling of hope that she might have another couple of kits in her (unlikely). We’ll keep watching. [Update: See August 25 post for additional losses. We got new bedding -- aspen shavings -- and had a healthy litter born September 12. All the kits are doing well.]

On the bright side, Tretan is learning more about plants. He knows that plantain can help with bee stings, and yesterday he made an intuitive leap and thought that it might help with other skin injuries. Which it does. When he noticed a scratch on his grandmother’s arm, he brought some plantain to her, told her to chew it, took the pulp from her, and put it on her scratch. That’s my boy!