Just call me Winnie the Pooh

I'm back from from a lengthy 3 week trip out of town and was fully expecting the bees to be completely naughty and deserving of spankings. Reminds me of a saying, "When the cat's out of town, the mice shall play."

I was expecting Africanized swarms chasing off after the neighbors, hives knocked over by wild wilder beasts and skunks, authorities forceful removal of my hives, bees living in my walls turning the drywall into a soppy honey sponge, general mayham and a hotel trashing similar to punk rock bands in the 80's.

What I found instead was little angel bees. The hives I was considering requeening were perfectly minding their manners, pumping out beeswax to their hearts content. The hives I had to rip apart in order to get them to stop cross combing were aligned like straight arrows along the top bars. The bees I was thinking about moving into more sunlight were producing comb and brood at a level similar to the hives in full sunlight. The only thing that would have made me happier after a full day and a half of hive inspections would have been if the bees baked me a frosted cake. That didn't happen, but I did gorge myself on pollen until my mouth was so chalky I could barely swallow and then proceeded to pound down so much honey that you can call me Winnie the Pooh.

The only odd thing I noticed was a fine layer of ash in some of the hives further back honeycomb. Must be a result of the Arizona's fires and the ash plumes that hid our sun and mountains for days. Also, we are in desperate need of rain and a nectar flow to turn out gobs of honey.