What could go wrong?

Thursday night I tuned in to a webinar offered by Brushy Mountain Bee Farm, from which I've bought most of my beekeeping supplies. If anyone out there is interested in becoming a backyard beekeeper or just wants to learn more about beekeeping in general, Brushy Mountain is a great resource: www.brushymountainbeefarm.com.

The guest speaker for the webinar was Jennifer Berry, Apicultural Research Coordinator and Lab Manager at the University of Georgia. UGA has an excellent honey bee program in its Entomology department. (GO DAWGS 'n BEES!) Jennifer has done extensive research on almost everything that can go wrong (or right) with honeybees — from pests to genetics. I learned a lot — particularly that I should have started with two hives rather than one. Two hives would afford me some means of comparison. And if one hive seemed weak, I could equalize the two hives by adding brood or bees from the stronger to the weaker. There was also some scary info about pests, diseases and unfertilized queens who only lay drone eggs.

I logged off the webinar when I felt I'd absorbed as much bad news as I could take. And after thinking it over, I'm feeling philosophical today. If my bees don't make it this year, I'll certainly be better informed and prepared for what to do next year. In the meantime, I'll think positive. My bees seem pretty darned scrappy right now.

My mother and brother came over today to visit, meet Katie Scarlett, and see the bees. I wish I'd remembered to take along my camera so I could make some shots of the two of them tricked out in bee gear! We smoked and fed the bees, then opened the hive to observe them. Looks like the bees are working on all eight frames of the bottom box and are on all but two in the second box. They are drawing out comb and we could see lots of pollen in the cells. All appears well, at least to my inexperienced eyes.

As if all this weren't enough, Mom took us to Dreamland for a lunch of barbecue and iced tea. "Ain't nothing like 'em, nowhere!" as their slogan says.

An excellent day, all in all. So why worry about what could go wrong? Since I'm still in Scarlett O'Hara mode, I'll think about it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.