Emergency Entry!

URGENT.  EMERGENCY.

These two words ran through my head late Sunday night.  Sunday afternoon I noticed that my bees were very, very flustered.  I mean they were in a ruckus.  They were blocking the entry, flying and buzzing and swarming around the hive for no apparent reason.  I thought is this the attack of intruders - a wasp, another colony perhaps - is this a war going on.  Is my Queen mating?  Do they need more room to enter/exit?  I didn't know.  Finally, they calmed down.  Then, I noticed that I had more ants lining up and around my beehive appearing to enter from the top.  OH NO!  MORE ANTS!  What if they are eating all my honey inside?  That's all I could think about.  They better not be eating my honey, hmmm, I bet they are.  Quick, we must get rid of them.  I quickly researched online to find out.  Turns out -  ants are in fact a big predator of bees.  They can eat the honey and even eat the young bee larva.  Solutions:  peppermint or spearmints leaves on top of frames and cinnamon around the hive.  My friend had also just told me the ants hate cinnamon.  I quickly searched for a big cheap bottle of cinnamon.  No such luck.  Great now I have to use my cinnamon from Saigon that I bought in California that I know I will never find in Arkansas - just dandy!  Fine, when it comes to my bees I spare nothing.  Luckily for me, my mom happened to have some spearmint on the front porch - CLUTCH.  Grabbed it, suited up, and went in for an EMERGENCY hive opening.  Upon the emergency opening of the hive, I was RELIEVED AND GLAD to see that there was not a trail of ants lining into the beehive stealing honey or eating my baby bees.  In fact, almost no ants were inside.  I took the this time to examine almost every frame.  It appears as my bee larva has hatched, and I could not find any currant bee larva uncovered which I was surprised at.  But I did find lots and lots of honey.  I place the spearmint leaves on top as planned just in case, as well as poured my precious cinnamon around the hive.
BONUS SIGHTING:   QUEEN ORTENSIA WAS ROAMING AROUND... My little Queen :)
What an awesome sight to see,  She looked healthy and happy.