Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz

  The buzz is bee's!  We have our two hives set up and going.  Again the things you can have mailed to you astound me! 

This is two packages of Bees. Enough for two hives.  They are all clustered at the top as this is where the food can and queen is.  Now to get them from this into the hive boxes.

Here is one hive.  With a few frames missing where we'll put bees, then come back in a couple days and add the frames back in. 

So here are some bee facts... Almost all the bees in a hive are females.  Female bees do all the work.  The Queen lays eggs and then the women get to work taking care of the eggs, feeding the queen, making wax, cleaning the hive, collecting pollen, and making honey.  In a bees life they will do all of the jobs for a time. Only the oldest bees actually leave the hive to collect pollen as they may not come back.  The hive makes what are called Drones, male bees, in the spring and summer but the males do nothing in the hive.  There only job is to mate a queen.  When winter comes the Drones get kicked out of the hive and die because they don't want to feed them all winter.  Drone bees can't even sting. Poor guys have no defense but really don't work a day in their lives.

So back to getting our bee's into the hive.  The bee's follow and stay with the their Queen so we have to get her in the hive.  The package makes that easy as she will be in a cage that has a candy stopper that the bees eat out to free her. 

First we sprayed the bees with a Sugar Syrup of 1 part sugar and 1 part water. This kept them busy cleaning each other off and they stick together a bit to make getting them in easier.  The Metal circle is the food that comes out first. 

 Here's Super D putting the Queen cage in. She's in the middle of that mess of bees.

Next Shake the bee's into their new home. All goes well but notice Super D's hole filled jeans?

 

Yep, bee's found those holes! Super D got lucky and didn't get stung bad. 

 

Ok, bees are in!  Yeah!  Now just one more hive to go.....

 

This one I got on film. So here is the installment. Super D changed for the second hive.  (I tried to get the video uploaded but it just wasn't working. Will try again later. )

 

All set up.  Just two hives. We have the other part of the hive bodies on the ground but will move those after the bees calm down.  With a good year we will have some honey at the end of summer!

 

In all Sugar Bug got stung and Sassafras and I got bees stuck in our hair but no stings and Super D got stung on the lip with the second hive. He really thinks he can do all this with out the bee suit and so far has done great! He did get gloves and hasn't gotten stung since that first day. He's much braver than I but I do help and get close enough to hand him supplies and check out the hives.  It is a neat thing to watch them grow.  I'll keep you all updated on their progress.