It happened again! This one was a little bit more of a challenge, but we caught it! Chris has the privilege to watch it leaving the hive, pouring out. Then it swirled above the apiary and to our rhododendron again! We will definitely be protecting that bush for years to come. There were a lot of bees this time; so we put them directly in a hive rather than a nuc box.
Guess what time of year it is? Swarm season! It's a bit later this year, but it is upon us.
We missed our first hive swarming. So we're keeping an eye on this one:
Today, my dad was out weed-whacking and found this. I'm so glad it was low!
What did we do? Well, I got the shears and Chris got a nuc box with three frames. We just slid the box underneath it and clipped the branches. We also added a frame with brood from another hive in the hopes to keep them there. (Start to finish, no protective gear, 8 minutes and back to work-from-home!)
When it is dark tonight, we will move it into the apiary to protect them from the bear!
This spring has definitely been unique. We are currently dealing with COVID-19 and sheltering in place. But that doesn't mean that the bees are sheltering in place!
Bees have been busy bringing in the pollen even before we saw any blossoms. We did loose two of our four bee hives over the winter, but the two left are going strong.
Bees bringing in pollen on March 19.
Our front hive has been so productive, we did a quick split. You can see us bumbling around in the video below. We're still new and with a long break over winter, we are rusty even with our newly gained skills.
In the video, you will see us check both hives. We then proceed to clean out the comb made in the empty space of the front hive. Move some bees to a nuc box (a specially designed used for raising queens, swarms and starter honey bee hives). After, we called our mentor - Joe - and we acquired a wintered queen to place inside the nuc. Currently, the worker bees are working on releasing her from the little cage that is blocked by sugar. Today, we will go out and make sure she is out or release her (once the weather is a bit warmer).
