Of Mice and Bees

I got sidetracked… I meant to clean out my wood shed… there was garbage in there that needed hauled and burned… and I had planned to haul some wood for my stove in there for the winter.  But, hey, I had to haul the garbage away first, so I did that.  Since the burn pit is down by the junk pile and I was right there, I decided to peek into my Bee Barn.

Now I knew I had lost that one hive, and I hoped it wasn’t overrun with mice even though I’d closed it up.  I checked.  Holy cow, the little turds had still gotten in and chewed up chunks of the rigid insulation I’d used in the roof.  GRRRRRRR.

Well, I was definitely hauling it home to seal it up tighter!!!

Then I checked my little Golden Mean hive.  It has a viewing window, so I opened it up, knowing they were doing well a few weeks ago.  Well, son of a gun.  A mouse nest was in there.  Great.

I lifted the lid on my big hive.  I couldn’t hear any hum!!!!  It was cool, but ahhhhhhh!  I just KNEW it was gonna be dead too.  I cracked open the follower board and pulled out bars.  After moving 5 or 6, I heard them… YAY!  No sign of mice as far as I could see… and HUMMING!  I closed it up tight.

I loaded my two other hives in my little truck, planning to work on them this winter.  I opened the little one by my garage… what a mess!  The mouse nest was HUGE.

It went through multiple combs.  GROSS.

I cleaned it out and cracked apart more top bars.  What?  There it was… a small hum!  With all this mess, I still had some bees alive!  I looked through the viewing window and a mouse was looking out at me!!!!  YUKYUKYUK!  There’s some honey and some bees… I’m gonna give them a chance.  I cleaned out the nest and set two traps inside.

I don’t want to open it up fully… temps weren’t quite warm enough… but if it warms up again, I’ll crack them all open and MAKE SURE there’s no mice in there.  I may have to feed the bees through the winter, but I’ll try to keep them happy!

I HATE MICE.