A Russian queen and her Italian workers (female), 3 pounds of them, arrived at 341 by horse trailer from Georgia to South Ohio, then by passenger van with Gary and Nancy to Perrysburg. Thoughtfully Nancy had thought to bring a length of veil as it was needed after the first few got out while being driven to their new homes.
Roger and Gary did the work – I was allowed to be the ‘gofer’. First the bees are poured and shaken into their new home. It has coats of linseed oil outside to keep it as natural as possible.
Then the frames with sheets of wax foundation (for ‘brood’ and honey) are carefully eased in
The Queen is new to these workers and must be slowly introduced to the Italians so she lives in a small inner cage with a few of her own (Russian) attendants.
The cage is put in the middle of the workers for them to accept their new ruler and to allow her, and them, to slowly chew away the candy plug in her prison wall.
All the while the city siren warned of severe storms. 43 mph from the South and 44F was the weather later. The books say you should do installations in calm weather!
Next day, in the cool of dawn, there was no activity at all
But inside you could hear the buzz
When the day warmed up you could see how friendly they really are. Nobody stung to date.
Already the ants are trailing to the bee’s sugar water bottle, and this Eastern American Toad has just awoke, very thin after winter hibernation, and is looking for insects I presume.
Tomorrow I go in to see how the Queen (Empress?) is faring.
Cormorants (Double Crested?) have just made their way up the Maumee River. I first knew them in Ireland where my father described them as ‘very dirty birds’. Forty four years ago I saw none on Lake Ontario, then 10 years later I saw a few solitary birds off Toronto Islands. Ten more years passed while the population increased to cloud-like flocks on the horizon. Moving to Lake Erie 24 years ago I saw the whole cycle repeated as the invasion of the Great Lakes proceeded westward. Now we saw about seventy of them perched on one tree on “Small Island” outside 341. Their droppings often kill the trees, as has happened at Lake Erie Islands, because of high ammonia content or just outright volume of guano, I’m not sure which.
