The 12,000 newest residents of Right Field Farm arrived today.
And I have to admit, I was a little intimidated. Okay, a lot intimidated. Two boxes of buzzing bees are off-putting. When they first arrived, it was warm and they were spread out inside the box. This picture was taken after dinner and they had all clustered together for warmth.
David had already put the hives together and white-washed the outsides. (We’re experimenting with alternatives to latex paint. White-wash is very Tom Sawyer but it seems like a pretty good alternative for outside things right now. We’ll see how it weathers.) We’ve put the hives out by the wee orchard in the hopes that they will one day help with pollinating our fruit trees.
The hives start small, with just the brood chamber and 10 beeswax frames inside. The idea is that the bees start here, fill this box up with honey and brood, and then we add more boxes until they start producing enough that we can take some honey for ourselves. From what I understand, that probably won’t happen until at least next year but if we start now, that’ll be here before we know it. :)
This is when it got exciting.
Carrying the bees to their new homes
The queen bee comes in her own separate box with a few worker bees in it to take care of her. The box is closed with a candy plug that they’ll take the next couple of days to eat through. While they’re getting out, the rest of the bees are getting used to her scent so they’ll accept her as the new queen. This is a picture of David preparing her box to hang inside the hive.
The book says “bang the box on the ground to dislodge the bees, then shake and pour them into the hive” Yeah, because banging, shaking and pouring bees sounds like a great idea.
David poured half the bees on top of where the queen’s box was and the other half in the open space in the hive. If you look closely at this picture, you can see the dark piles of bees on top of the frames.
Then, since the bees pretty much stay where they’re poured, he had to reach in a “gently disperse” the bees in order to put the rest of the frames back into the hive.
Uncle David, the kids and I all stayed well back from the process and David did all the hard work. He only got stung twice and managed to make the whole thing look pretty straightforward. What a good husband. :)
