Our First Swarm has arrived!

Busy Busy Bees

Memorial Day is just another day in the busy busy buzzin life of a honey bee. 

Today was brew day! The guys brewed 40 gallons of beer and during all the pictures of beer brewing I took time out to photograph our busy busy bees takin care of some pollination! If you don't enjoy bee pictures, now might be the time to stop looking cause I took a ton of pictures and here is but a few of those pictures..........

Bees are SO impressive!!!

Bee Swarm Caught using a bait hive Video of the Transfer

Transferring a colony of bees from a swarm trap into a Kenyan Top Bar Hive. Inside the bait hive, we put a small super frame with old black brood comb and the bees absolutely loved it! As you can see in the opening picture, the black comb was a huge hit with the swarm! We also used lemon grass oil to bait them.

Ordering a Queen Bee Online

One of the swarms that Bryan has caught this year is without a Queen...they were not making a queen for themselves, so we ordered a Queen bee to add to the colony. We purchased her online from QueenBeesForSale.com. We have been very pleased with the Corniolan bees so we wanted a Corniolan queen for that hive.

Corniolans:  "It is favored among beekeepers for several reasons, not the least being its ability to defend itself successfully against insect pests while at the same time being extremely gentle in its behavior toward beekeepers. These bees are particularly adept at adjusting worker population to nectar availability. It relies on these rapid adjustments of population levels to rapidly expand worker bee populations after nectar becomes available in the spring, and, again, to rapidly cut off brood production when nectar ceases to be available in quantity. It meets periods of high nectar with high worker populations and consequently stores large quantities of honey and pollen during those periods. They are resistant to some diseases and parasites that can debilitate hives of other subspecies."

She arrived overnight UPS in a hard case along with a few nurse bees to accompany her on the journey. I was so excited when the UPS truck pulled up...I met him in the front yard and said "Oh yeah! Is this my bee!" To which he paused and said "Your What!?". Oh oops, you didnt know you had some bees riding around next to you all day! I just said Thank you and went on inside.

This container was inside the UPS mailer...so I opened it on up to check and make sure everyone arrived safely and unharmed. The while tube coming out of the top of the cage is full of soft candy. This way the bees from the new colony can eat through the candy to release the queen slowly into the hive. 

Here she is in the hive getting to know her new colony. 

Kenyan Top Bar Hive Construction

New YouTube Video Post on Kenyan Top Bar Hive Construction

Hive Inspection

Taking a look at the busy busy bees! The bees are doing great and are pretty much the only thing still thriving throughout the terrible heat we just experienced! 

I love seeing the new wax they are forming in an impressive amount of time, as well as the fresh capped honey!!