The Bees Knees

The Bees Knees.....

They have arrived! After a very wacky winter, and the demise of 8 out of 10 of Chris' hives, the Apiary is off to a fresh start! On Monday morning, we headed out to Lima, OH (Lima as in the bean, not Peru) to fetch 5 packages of honey bees who were hungrily waiting for us after their cross-country journey from California. Stupidly, I took the camera with us, but took no pictures of any part of this phase of our adventure....

Anyway, here is Piper painting the outside of the screened box with sugar water. You could actually see the bees "tongues" on the side drinking it up. They were really hungry!
















Here is Chris on his way out to set the bees up in their new 'digs'. He has somehow managed to convince me to get close enough to actually take some pictures....



















As you can see, though, I'm not that close. (Had a bad bee experience once) Piper, is also sitting next to me at this point. These bees, New World Carniolians, we've been told are quite nice and so the hiving process, should be free of stinging accidents.

Ok, here we go! The metal can is full of sugar water, which Chris told me was just about empty. Now the box is open and the bees are free. Why do they stay, you ask? The Queen is still in the box. She is kept separate from the rest of the bees in a cage which is plugged with a bit of sugar candy.
















Here she is....



















Her majesty is inside the screen box which you can just barely see in the picture. The candy is nearly gone, but Chris will make sure to break the rest out so that the Queen can come out and get busy.






















Sometime soon, she will go on her one and only flight - the mating flight. Where she will 'get what she needs' to settle in and make lots of ba-bees! You see all those bees on Chris' hand? He was totally laughing because the bees were licking the honey off of him. Me? I'd be freaking out! In fact, at this point, Piper was no longer sitting next to me, she was on top of me and pretty much begging to go back to the house. So, not wanting to temp fate (I'm just not a bee person) That is what we did. It was cool though for a while.

Chris? He was out there all day....Just look at how happy he is!



















Anyone need any honey?