You know, I have tried to stay away from politics on this bloggity blog. As my missives were originally written only for my little mommy, and she and I differ drastically on matters of politics, I feel like it's important to not offend, even if I am always right. ALWAYS.
But, I think, in this one occasion, maybe just maybe it's okay to diverge.
Why, Cara, why do you agree with Stephen Colbert, and on what?
That's right, one of the major threats to America: Bears.
What has brought me to this incredible conclusion?
Last weekend, 9/19 to be exact, I was standing upstairs (where we sleep) and did my usual first thing in the morning check out the window to admire the gleaming white boxes that house our bees. What did I see?
Something kinda sorta like this (minus the beekeeper!)

WAH! It appeared that a bear, or perhaps a
ManBearPig, or maybe even a
BearShark, came through in the night and tried to rob these little ladies of their precious food.
We had to get out there prontissimo and try to evaluate the damage and put them back together as best we could. Funny thing was, the hive was really only turned over and not much physical damage was evident to the naked eye, other than some smooshed comb in the honey super (that's the smaller box on top).
The bees had already adapted to their upside down home by the time we got out there and didn't like us trying to fix the boxes. Even using the smoker Andy got attacked, and I don't know if we moved too slow or what but by the time we started putting the honey super back on he was getting stung in every exposed area he didn't know he had... So I jumped in and tried to patch everything up and I received my first ever bee sting from my hives. :-( We were both so rattled we put the top cover back on without putting all the frames in.
Perhaps rather foolishly I tried to calm them down by spraying them with sugar water, and this is the result after we both ran away from the defending bees. We could only hope that the queen was safe and sound in there and was not crushed by the bear attack or our re-alignment of the hive body (the big box).
Another revelation in doing this (as it's been raining so much here we haven't been able to inspect the hives lately) was that our bees don't have enough food to get them through the winter (if they survive this stupid attack, anyway!) So, we need to start feeding them prontissimo with sugar water. There wasn't really any honey for the bear to get, so (s)he knocked it over and went on, I suppose.
Ironically enough, the most recent
Buncombe County Beekeeping Chapter meeting's presentation was about how to build a bear fence. Did I jinx it by saying to myself, in my head "this doesn't apply to me"? Meh. If I had time, I would have spent all day today building a bear fence. But instead I spent 5 hours studying.
Sadly, the bear came back yesterday and did the same thing. Part of me wonders if it's neighborhood kids and not a bear, because the body was just knocked over and didn't look tampered with at all. According to experienced Beekeepers, when a bear comes through, it usually tears the hives apart. And why wasn't the second hive bothered?
Both Andy & I were dressed for work and eating breakfast when we saw it. Not exactly how I wanted to start a busy Friday - getting attacked by angry bees (that I accidentally woke up before we could put their box back on the cinderblocks). Ugh!
Now we've put cinder blocks on top of both hives and hopefully we'll find some time to get going on a bear fence within the week - if it's not too late already.
I suck at beekeeping!
But I'll probably stick with it...