Saturday, April 7, 2012

New bees

It is official! Cam is a 2 hive beekeeper!

A couple weeks ago, he 'rescued' some bees that were in a place where they were not wanted, and then we ordered a new bunch from a company that breeds bees and separates them.
These are the new bees, they arrive in a wire and wood container, which is pretty cool because you can get really close to them without any bodily harm!! Then you just sort of 'dump' them into the hive.


He had saved the honey from the hive from last year's bees, and these new bees really liked that! We have had these frames in my freezer for a couple weeks now- to kill any germs etc. I will say I am happy to have my freezer space back! The queen comes in her own little box. I find this process fascinating. You put her inside the hive in her box for 3 days. This allows her pheromones to get into the hive, and then when you let her go, the worker bees recognize her as their queen. If you fail to get her pheromones in the hive, they will kill her and make themselves a new queen, or they could possibly just leave the hive because they have no queen.


This is a close-up of the box the new queen is in, the bees on the outside of the box feed her. I am not sure if the new queen has a name yet - I think I heard something about Jusine "Beeber" but I haven't gotten an official word yet!


Cam is so excited to have another hive going. He is keeping his fingers crossed that this works out better than his last go around! I am too - I love honey!

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