Bee Observations

   It might be said that I don't know - about honey bees, and whoever said it would be right.  But I am interested in honey bees, so I try to pay attention to my beekeepers.  For example, a few weeks ago they came over to check on "my" bees (their bees in my garden).  This is a new hive, created this summer in the middle of the day by stealing half of the hive with a queen egg cell and the bees that were home while the rest of the workers were out working.  I wasn't present for the "theft", but that's how I take the story I was told on "acquisition day".  Anyhow, I had called them because I wasn't seeing a lot of bees, I thought, and found a couple crawling across the ground and unable to fly.  He checked the bees and was tickled with his findings: lots of capped brood and lots of honey.  The hive had a tall super and a smaller, honey super.  He added another small super on top of a queen excluder and commented that if they kept making honey at that pace they would need to add another super in a few weeks.  He was suited up, using smoke and moving calmly and deliberately.  He remarked how docile my bees are.
   Fast-forward to this past Friday.  Melissa and I went out to check the garden and I noticed that her late planting of sunflowers were starting to blossom.  All I could think about was those huge sunflowers must have lots of nectar and that reminded me that our beekeeper had said he would need to add another super in a few weeks, so I called them up to remind them.  She told me that he planned to be over by 1 to check on them.
   He pulled in, rather in a hurry as he had a flight in just 4 hours and it's two hours to the airport from our house and he lives a little further out.  He had his bee suit half on as he hopped over the bottom two strands of electric fence that he didn't unhook, with a small super in one hand and his gloves in the other while trying to pull his suit the rest of the way on.  He reached for the wildlife netting and his suit dropped to his ankles, which showed me he was wearing jean shorts and a t-shirt under the suit.  He paused then, suited up and then strode across the garden to the bee hive.  He loosened up the tie down strap to make room to add the new super and dropped the loop behind the hive.  Then he yanked off the metal lid and the wooden one and set them down and peered in the top honey super.  He picked it partway off and set it back down rather hard I thought and then gripped the queen excluder with it and picked them both off together.
   I was about 20-25 yards away and could see the bees crawling around on the honey super that is under the excluder.  When he went to put the exluder and top super back on it seemed that the excluder got ahead of his fingers and landed rather hard on top of the full honey super.  The top super was put back on rather quickly and he began swatting at one of his legs while reaching for the lids.  I was in full retreat as I watched him jam the wooden and metal lids on top of the hive, grab the empty super (that isn't needed yet) and move quickly from the garden, flailing his arms and swatting his body the whole way out to the road.  When he had finished swatting and brushing bees from himself he came over and talked for a minute and got ready to leave, until I reminded him that he hadn't secured the hive.  There was a look of dread in his eyes as he said "I'm just going to put a rock on top of it for now", which is what he did, quickly.
   OBSERVATION: If you are kind and gentle with your bees, they will be kind and gentle with you.  If you are hard and rough on your bees, they will be hard and rough on you!