This years "Cock Up's"

[thurrock bees]

A recent one i can remember, I put three 25 litre containers containing 1/1 sugar syrup in the boot of my car with the idea that i will drop my daughter off at school and go to feed the girls,
Well i was waiting at the roundabout for a gap, saw one, and i pulled away with a thud, thinking oh one of the containers has fell over, then to my horror the unmistakened sound of syrup leaving the containers at a rapid rate, i pulled over and rushed to the boot. Opening the boot i see one has fallen over and broke leaving a large crack over , half of the syrup had created a lake in my boot.

I spent the next two days washing and hoovering ( got a VAX) my car dry.I now have a bungee cord which helps to hold them upright.

 

[worrywort]

cock ups.

Hello there.
I only had two this year.

A horrible smell whilst smoking the bees. My sleeve was on fire.

and picking up spare a roof I had left on the ground. To see why a flow of wasps were coming and going from one side.

I stuck the kitchen together with honey, wax and propolis, but I always do that every year.

 

[MrB]

I cant remember the song I sang now

Was it 'let it Bee' ?

 

[Rosti]

A horrible smell whilst smoking the bees. My sleeve was on fire.

Excellent, we are an exclusive club of 2, we deserve our own arsonist sub-forum

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

,I cant remember the song I sang now

We gotta get out of this place ?

Principle errors this year
- destroying all QCs in a Q- colony
- dropping hive tool on butane gas canister
- generally crushing and mainiming far too many bees with cack-handed manipulation
- wandering up casually without a suit to just observe previously calm hive when there was rain in the air



think I may have got away lightly but they've been remarkably well adjusted this year. Sure it won't continue.

 

[newportbuzz]

my worst one was i asked a freind to help me pick up my first hive . it was an hour drive away and i hadnt got a beesuit yet. bit silly i know but it gets better. so we land up pick up this hive wich is in fair condition two supers and brood box takes two to lift it so i got a good buy plenty of bees.(found this out later) tied it all up in the back of the van. chated with the beek. and then left. i got about halfway home and bees start to escape from somewhere it doesnt bother me to much as they arnt paying much attension to me just flying around. About 5 mins later i get a phone call from my girlfreind who tells me that her brother (the guy sat beside me in the van helping me lift the hive) is allergic to bees. needless to say all the windows went down it was the slowest drive home i have ever had. i think i had enough bricks to build a house. He thought that we were just picking up a empty hive and once he realised his mistake just shut his mouth. FUN FUN FUN

 

[DulwichGnome]

My worst has to be the car with blacked out windows I parked at the petrol station when moving a hive one evening.


The problem was I never had tinted windows when I filled up with petrol,only when I came back to the car to find I had not done the straps up tight enough.

I had to be brave and drive with the bees all going towards the back window.

I even sang a little song aloud on the way to dropping them off,I cant remember the song I sang now but I am sure it must of had "oh sh*t" in the chorus a few times.

I had a similar thing last year when I had to brake hard and the the BB slide off of the floor leaving a 10mm gap front and back. I managed to slide it back but must have left a hole somewhere and the back of the car filled with 30 or so bees, any thing below 10/15 mph and they started to come forward!! I stopped once to let them out, got some very stange looks....

I now gaffer tape all joints, before I set out, and have a car with electric back windows.

Mike.

 

[Heather]

Leaving a shed door open , mid summer, with supers and equipment in there . I could hear the bee activity before I saw the shed. They must have thought it was Xmas 6 hives met up for a feast
had no choice but to let them continue all day......

 

[margob99]

5) and 9) were priceless! And worrywort's (1) too!

Mine were:

1) Getting the Q trapped above the QX resulting in brood in the honey super,
2) Putting my face near the hive opening the day before I was due to have passport photos taken (no-one will ever recognise me crossing borders anymore),
3) Bringing a full honey super indoors and storing it on a carpet. Spent a half a day washing the honey out.

My current one is

- Forgetting to put the QX in when uniting. I expect to face the consequences tonight

 

[Beezy]

Haha, some of these are hilarious! My worst so far has been to go down in t-shirt & shorts to pop an extracted super back on top what I thought was a closed crownboard...but then realising as soon as I'd lifted the roof off that I hadn't in fact replaced the crownboard. A painful experience.

 

[Cazza]

A recent one i can remember, I put three 25 litre containers containing 1/1 sugar syrup in the boot of my car with the idea that i will drop my daughter off at school and go to feed the girls,
Well i was waiting at the roundabout for a gap, saw one, and i pulled away with a thud, thinking oh one of the containers has fell over, then to my horror the unmistakened sound of syrup leaving the containers at a rapid rate, i pulled over and rushed to the boot. Opening the boot i see one has fallen over and broke leaving a large crack over , half of the syrup had created a lake in my boot.

I spent the next two days washing and hoovering ( got a VAX) my car dry.I now have a bungee cord which helps to hold them upright.

I managed to lose 10lbs of honey into the boot of the car once. What a mess. It managed to flow into the front footwell too and ended up everywhere.

Mistakes haven't been to frequent this year, I've only managed to blow torch my thumb because I reached past it to pick up a frame. How stupid can you get!
Cazza

 

[margob99]

Well I am sad to say I've just come back from my biggest cock-up in my entire 16-month kack-handed career as a beekeeper

I did a very cursory inspection on Saturday (7 days ago), convinced my 1st hive was still queenless after 6 weeks without brood-sign. So I united it with my 2nd hive, strong and queen-right.

Today I went to check on the results, and there was 10-day old sealed brood in both brood boxes. Clearly, my cursory inspection on Saturday was the biggest mistake I ever made; because I missed early brood - my so-called queenless hive must've had a queen.

Not only that, but I didn't put a QX between the 2 brood boxes when I united, and I couldn't see any Queen today, so I have no idea now where she/they are. I put a QX in between the 2 brood boxes, and the extra super on top of a crownboard with porter escapes, to separate the whole lot, and I will go back in 2 days and see if I can spot any very young rice-grain eggs, to see if I can spot which section she's in.

That's if she survived my pathetic clunky attempts at beekeeping ...

I am devastated. I'm hopeless!

*Hangs head and goes off to sob quietly in a corner*

 

[kazmcc]

I've not been bee keeping long, but we almost had a cock up when we started treating a week or so ago. Our mentor told one of us to pick up the super, while I place the strips. As the helper lifted the super and went to move it away, I noticed the whole thing was stuck together. Lots of shouting Woah, woah, stop! I guided it back, thankfully still stuck together, and used the hive tool to prise it apart. We continued without a hitch. He only got as far as lifting it about 30cm before I noticed, but still, a 30cm drop of the brood box would not have gone down well with the bees I don't think. Mental note to check when I replace the strips in a few days

 

[Heather]

Wow- you are either very strong, or there is some feeding to be done. I cannot envisage lifting a brood box on its own, never mind under a super

 

[Queens59]

You'd have ended up with the same sting pattern as me...we could have been sting buddies!!

 

[kazmcc]

I didn't lift it, I have a bloke who looks after them with me....he does the lugging

 

[Finno]

Was going to go hi-tech for my hive notes - used mobile phone as dictaphone. Going to work next morning couldn't find the mobile. Of course, I found it lying on top of a hive after a night out in the rain. My first attempt at grafting and none took. Tried a second batch and none took - only then I discovered old queen laying quite happily. I had removed her by placing her and another frame of brood in a nuc box. However, as I had stood the nuc box on top of the open hive while working, it appears that she must have sauntered out the entrance and back down into the hive.

 

[Jim Lavie]

I did a similar thing to kazmcc, by using hive tool between queen excluder and brood box. The super was so heavy I gave a big heave and stood with super, queen excluder and six brood frames attached. Bees everywhere, sweat pouring as 2 frames became detached and a couple of bees found access inside the veil. took ages, slowly putting it all together and had to lie down for an hour. No Stings!

 

[Heather]

And when the brood frame suddenly detaches crashing back to where it came from- the sleepless nights waiting to see if eggs still being produced- or did I commit the cardinal sin of queen squashing....But we learn.

 

[Gardenbees]

Hmmm... here's one that'll cheer you up:
going down to see the bees, all suited up etc. and forgetting that I'd used Body Shop Honey Lip Balm earlier that day
Bees were quite calm about it, but very determined: I was going to have a velcro moustache for the rest of the morning, regardless of my attempts to remove them!
Rest assured that being kissed by the front end of a load of bees is preferable to the other end... but still rather alarming! They clung onto the veil all the way back up to the house (and it's a *long* way) and I had to shrug off the bee jacket & veil, and nip sharpish through the patio doors leaving the disappointed girls sniffing around on the veil..
Still, kudos to the Body Shop - obviously they use genuine ingredients!