The Bees Have Landed

HE (aka Jim) and the kids installed the bees into their hives on Monday. It was an exciting occasion. Jim donned the white beekeeper's suit, Erica wore the extra veil and Aidan waited for his turn to try the veil out. I kept my distance with the telephoto lens to document the process.  I'm not afraid of the bees, but I'm also not interested in being stung by more than one at a time....

 Box 'o' Bees.

Loading up the cart with necessities....

Erica and Aidan haul the cart to the hive location.

 HE carries the bees.

Opening one box of bees.

Inspecting the queen...

Dumping the bees.

Making their way into the hive.

Sugar water for sustenance.

Closer inspection...

In and out the front door.

All completed without a single sting, though the kids insist they saw Spotters eating some bees a day or so later, so perhaps he had a sting or two... We'll check on the bees this weekend to ensure that the queen was released from her box and that the hives look healthy. Other than that, there's not much else involved. If you have any questions or are curious about the bees or any part of this process, let us know and we will try to answer your questions. Being novices, we are learning as we go and reading as much as we can from the internet and library books, so we might have the information you are looking for. 

Honeybees are actually quite docile creatures. One of the amazing things to me is the way the bees act as one organism. When Jim poured them out of the box, they clumped and moved together (mostly). It was an extraordinary sight. They never swarmed toward Jim or Erica (Aidan, it turns out, was to shy to go very close to the hives even with the veil on). 

As with most farming projects, there are many pest and disease issues involved with beekeeping, so there is no guarantee that we will end up with any honey, but we hope and do our best. Just as with animals and the garden, mother nature might have other plans. Hail could decimate our entire garden, disease or predators could invade our chicken flock. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. Have faith and have fun. And know that we can always start from scratch all over again if things don't go according to plan.

See you at the honey harvest!