Beekeepers, in general, are a somewhat stubborn, independent lot. (As we said on the elementary school playground, “It takes one to know one!”) However, things can and do go wrong in the beekeeping world, so it is good to have friends who can help when difficulties arise. This requires opening up about our “failures” to other beekeepers, something many of us, unfortunately, loathe.
Recently a fellow beekeeper called and asked, “Do you have a bottom board, inner cover, and telescoping cover I could borrow? I’d like to split my bees, but I’m out of equipment, and the beekeeping supply stores are sold out for the next two months.” Fortunately, we had finished delivering nucleus colonies to new beekeepers, so we had surplus equipment. “Sure,” we answered, “keep as long as you like.” Our friend asked, and we could help.
A month ago, we delivered our last sales nucleus colony and began to focus on rebuilding our apiary. During lunch with a beekeeping friend, he mentioned he had just raised some queen cells and had three left. Could we use them? Yes, absolutely! This was an only God moment. We had just decided to make three new nucleus colonies and were going out the next day to do so, but we did not have a ready source for new queens.
