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Thursday, May 3, 2012

The Bees are Here!

In 3 days we are scheduled to pick up our ordered bees.
But in the meantime, a fellow beekeeper has offered us one of her swarms.
 
She arrives with the captured swarm in a box
.
 
My daughter sprays sugar syrup on the frames of the new hive
to calm them and attract them inside.
 
Opening the box of bees!
 
Bee, bees everywhere!
 
We dump them into the hive.
 
We are successful getting the queen into the hive
and the bees follow her down between the frames.
 
 
Busy bees!

Closing up the hive

Finally the hive gets a feeder full of sugar syrup 
to sustain them while they set up their home.
Welcome home!

 
 
 
 

2 comments:

Phyllis said...

Why the difference in the size of the hives?--interesting hobby

tagnrocky said...

The green hive has a second super (drawer-like box) on top of the brood box. When the hive is new, the bees fill the first box with comb, eggs, pollen & honey. Once that box is full, a second box is added for them to expand into. Eventually, you add a box just for honey storage. This first year, we will allow them to establish and not take any honey from them.