Our Family just got larger!

MEET THE BEES

Our Family just got larger! By  about 20,000 or more. The Bees are here and the "Beekeeper" is in the yard. This is how they arrived.
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.

(Isn't he adorable in his bee "bonnet"??)

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

 Here is how it all starts:

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.

 There were a few bees left in the boxes but you just put them close to the hive and they can smell the queen so they find their way in from outside.

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.