8/13

I started making candles with beeswax that were collected and filtered from the beehives. We can make regular candles with nothing added, colored candles, scented candles, and colored and scenteed ones.Personally I like the regular ones the best because they smell like honey even with doing anything to them. To make the candles, I first had to wick strings through the silicon candle molds using wicking needles made from my hair pins. Then I melted the beeswax and poured it into the molds. Then they had to be cooled before the finished candles could be pulled out from their molds. Through the candle making process, I learned that patience is a golden virtue that is highly desirable when making them. I broke so many candles because I was too impatient and pulled the candles out of their molds too soon before they had completely solidified.

In Jamaica, you learn things by getting hurt. I learned that I should not take hermit crabs lightly, when I picked a big bright red and purple one up and got pinched by it to the point where my thumb was bleeding. I learned that  I should never touch trash cans with my bare hands when my hand was bit all over by fire ants that crawl all over the smelly bags. I also went swimming at the beach for the first time. It was really refreshing, and I also had a lot of fun playing various games with the boys. But also got pricked by sea urchines and learned to never go into the water without wearing sandals. I also learned to never touch the mosquito nets placed above my head when the fans are moving when
I tried to cover one of the holes with a towel and cut my hand when a fan blade hit it. I am never this clumsy at home but I think I'm a magnet for danger here in Jamaica.

I also went into the hives for the first time today. We went once in the morning and once in the evening to place feeds we had made the other night night by mixing brown sugar and water. We have to put feeds in each of the hives because right now there is a scarcity in the amount of nectars/food that the bees can collect right now. One big problem that occurs as a result of such scarcity, is the robbing of hives for honey by robber bees. When we went to inspect in the evening, we found two hives that had been robbed. It was not a pretty sight as all of the bees in each of the hives were completely murdered and chewed up by the robbers. It looked like a mini aftermath of hiroshima as I saw piles of black carcasses that looked as if they had been charred up at the bottom of the hive trough and or stuck on the combes. I also saw one hive that had been infested with wax eating moths. Their larvae were crawling all over the place and the combes were plastered with webs that they produce. Other than the wax eatig moths, other predators of bees include spiders (that eat bee larvae) and termites (that suck the blood of the bees). Joshua showed me one drone bee with a red termite on its butt; I learned that termites like to infest on drones more than worker bees because drones have bigger bodies and it is easier for them to reproduce in their big cells. When I went to inspect the hives in the morning, I learned that there are three types of bees in each hive: worker bees, drones and a queen bee. Worker bees are all females without reproductive functions and they are also a lot smaller than drones. They nurse the larvaes and also collect water, nectar and wax. Drones are males bees and are alot bigger than worker bees. They cannot sting people as they lack stingers; the worker bees and the queen are the only ones with stingers. The queen has a longer abdomen compared to drones and worker bees, and young queens have lighter colored bodies than older ones. The healthier younger queens also can lay more eggs than older ones;  the difference can be as great as 800 and 3000 eggs per day. The hives with younger queens have brooding nests that are more packed with eggs and larvae, and hives with older queens create brooding nests that have lots of empty cells inbetween each egg/larva cells. Next time I will make sure to wake up early so that I don't have to work in the sweltering heat.