The Beginning of my Beekeeping Journey
Apr 19, 2015 19:30:09 GMT -5
histopicker, rendezvous, and 2 more like this
Post by Brad H. on Apr 19, 2015 19:30:09 GMT -5
4/17/2015 - The bees have arrived. I purchased these bees from a honey farm about an hour to the west of where I live. They were trucked up earlier in the week from an apiary in Georgia. This is how they arrive. This a box with 3 lbs. of bees and a queen cage.
Here I am removing the can that holds sugar water for the bees to eat on their journey north.
Once the feed can comes out the queen cage is removed and put in our pocket. Here is a close up of the queen cage. She is in this little box with 4 or 5 worker bees that keep her fed. The opening is blocked with a cork and a marshmellow. We remove the cork, and ideally the bees eat through the marshmallow once it is placed in the hive releasing her to do her duties. She must be smelling pretty good because the rest of the bees are obsessed with her cage.
We remove two frames from the bottom hive and dump the bees in.
Spreading the bees out so they don't get squished when we place the frames back in.
The queen cage then gets squeezed in between two of the frames, and the bees should work on getting her out via the marshmallow.
All that's left to do is place another box on top for them to start filling up.
Here it is. My own little apiary. They almost immediately started doing orientation flights out the woods and back. They were flying like crazy on this warm weekend. More updates soon!
Here I am removing the can that holds sugar water for the bees to eat on their journey north.
Once the feed can comes out the queen cage is removed and put in our pocket. Here is a close up of the queen cage. She is in this little box with 4 or 5 worker bees that keep her fed. The opening is blocked with a cork and a marshmellow. We remove the cork, and ideally the bees eat through the marshmallow once it is placed in the hive releasing her to do her duties. She must be smelling pretty good because the rest of the bees are obsessed with her cage.
We remove two frames from the bottom hive and dump the bees in.
Spreading the bees out so they don't get squished when we place the frames back in.
The queen cage then gets squeezed in between two of the frames, and the bees should work on getting her out via the marshmallow.
All that's left to do is place another box on top for them to start filling up.
Here it is. My own little apiary. They almost immediately started doing orientation flights out the woods and back. They were flying like crazy on this warm weekend. More updates soon!
