Tending to the bees, Mama’s business

I had planned on tending to the bees earlier in the day yesterday, but I got caught up in actual work at lunchtime and had put it off until after work. I have needed to change out the bottles of syrup in the feeders for days now but have been held off because of the rain. Opening the hives in the rain would be unwise. Fortunately, yesterday was overcast, but we did not have any rainfall. I was not sure what to expect when I opened the feeders and further opened the hives, but I needed to make sure the bees were drawing out the frames in the brood box. I have to wait to add anything to the hive until the brood box is almost full – or at least eight of the ten frames are full. When I see that, I can put the honey super on the hive – but not before. I had Mama hold off on making the syrup for the feeders until I looked into the hives. Lat time we made it up in advance and the syrup mixture sat in the fridge for a week. Not a good thing. When I did open the hive and look in, I was a little disappointed.

So far, the bees have only filled out between six and seven of the frames in each of the hives. I expect as plants begin to bloom and more pollen is available, they will make better progress, but for now, I replaced the jars in the syrup feeders with full jars and we will check again Thursday. I was able to tell that many more bees are in each of the hives, and that they are working hard to draw out (fill) the frames with comb so more bees can be hatched, but it is still a work in progress. On the bright side, when the comb is drawn out on the frames, it will be used over and over by the queen to lay eggs. Until they are closer to the goal of having the frames drawn out, I will not add any area they are required to guard against predators. Empty areas on the hives are an invitation to predators and there must be sufficient bees in the colony to protect those areas. So far, it has been fun to work the hives. Mama has let me do the work alone because we do not have a good bee suit for her, and she is too afraid of getting stung. For me and Mama, it is an education in progress.

Mama’s business is doing well. I think. She reached another level in the company which translates into more money made personally from every sale. That is good. However, she has spent a fair amount of money lately because of how the company has had to change their product availability. Orders have been in the multiple millions of packages of nails per day. More than the company can supply without limiting access to their website to stylists only. That change requires Mama to buy – out of pocket – the nails ordered in parties and then mail those products to those who ordered the nails. Those are two new, unexpected expense to cover while we get the products to customers and then wait to be repaid for those products. The money will eventually come back to us, but accounting for the expense has become challenging for Mama. Getting the customer payments to the right account to make sure the expense is reimbursed before the profits are calculated is an uncommon math issue for her to deal with, but we are managing. What is amazing to watch is that her business, and the company that makes that business possible, is growing exponentially as we still struggle with the current pandemic crisis.

I am expecting to hear from the bank in Lawton today or tomorrow. Once we know the paperwork is ready for signatures, Mama and I will plan the trip to Lawton to get that done. We need a road trip even though that may cost me time in quarantine with my company. I am not sure if a trip to Oklahoma will count as a “quarantine required” action on behalf of my company guidelines, but one of the questions I have to answer upon entering the office is, “Have you traveled outside the state of Texas in the past 30 days?.” I am not sure what action an affirmative answer to that will bring but we will see. I do not want to lie. The consequences of that are more offensive than any action my company would require of me for crossing the state line. As if the virus knows what a border of Texas is. That is just one of the illogical impositions we are now dealing with.

Hopefully this confusion is shortlived.