Healthy Venom
The Bee Inspector inspects
Fred the bee inspector visited today. There have been four cases of European foulbrood (EFB) detected in the neighbourhood already this season - that's a lot - and he came to check that Copper Bee Apiary did not harbour a fifth. Fortunately it didn't - we are clear.
The bees don't like being inspected for disease. The Pond Hive bees took particular exception to the intrusion and gave Fred several stings for his trouble. And later, after Fred had gone and I was inside the house quietly cleaning the fish tank, one of the bees came buzzing along and stung me on the head, just to make sure I got the message.
So, angry bees today. But I'd been expecting as much, as they reacted the same way to last year's inspection. And at least I didn't get stung and have a notifiable disease declared in the apiary, because then the bees' bad mood would be as nothing compared with mine.