MEET THE BEES
This picture is of two colonies each with their own queen. She is in a little cage so the bees can smell her but can't get to her.
MEET "BOB THE BEE KEEPER"
Bob was a bee keeper while in the Navy and has always wanted to resume the hobby but time and space have not allowed it until now.
These are the new luxury condos Bob built for his Bees to live in
This is the view the Bees have as soon as they fly out of their hives
Bob is spraying his bees with sugar water. They eat it and get real calm so that he can go inside the box and take out the queen cage. Then he removed the little cork and replaced it with a miniature marshmallow. After he put the queen in the "new digs", he then dumped the sugar laden workers in around her. The idea is that in a few days they will eat through the marshmallow to get to the queen and then begin the work of building a colony.
Bob put lots of sugar water in the feeders so the bees don't have to go far from home to eat. They get right to work making babies and making cells to hold the honey. Because we got our bees in late spring, it is important that they are able to make enough honey to get the colony through the winter. That means no honey for us this year but next year we are golden.
After a few days we noticed the little scout bees coming back with thier pollen baskets (located on their back legs) full. It didn't take them long to find it and bring it home!
They come to the opening in the hive and the "guard bee" smells them. If he smells right he is let in and he dumps his pollen and heads back out to find more. This goes on all summer. They gather pollen for a protien source and nectar to make honey. It will take a year for the colonies to get large enough so we can share their bounty so no honey until next summer.
