BEE-autiful!

Those of you who know us, know that we like to keep busy with a variety of projects, besides the ones you see at craft fairs.  Recently, Ruth has gotten the idea that she wants to be a beekeeper, so she acquired a hive, a couple of bee suits, some tools, but, until yesterday, no bees.  Then came the call.

 Our neighbor down the road, Jim, has bees, and he called that one of his hives had swarmed, that is, some of the bees with a queen had flown into a nearby tree and were making a big bundle while searching for a new place to call home. I took up our empty hive (pictured at left) and he set it up under the swarm (the dark blotch in the middle of the tree, right above the open hive).

 Here is a close-up of the swarm,  The bees are all clutching one another, and form a fairly cohesive mass.  Once we had the hive in place, Jim bent the limb down as close to the hive as he could, then gave it a quick shake.  A huge clump of the bees fell directly onto the hive, some of them falling atop the frames, and many of them landing on the inner lid.

Well over half the swarm came down on the first shake.  Some were hanging over the sides, and some were flying around.  But all of them quickly got down to the business of getting into the box.

 This video shows the bees moving into the hive.  They move as a mass, and you can see them receding from the left side of the inner lid.  Gradually, Jim was able to set the inner lid and place the cover on top of the hive.  We left it there till after dark to allow all the bees from the swarm to get inside.  We plugged the entrance with a piece of wood, tied a strap around the whole hive, and loaded it on the truck for the short trip home.

We had the platform already prepared, so we carefully set the hive on the stand, and left it alone till morning.

Ruth goes to work at 5:30a, but before she left, she opened the hive and put in a feeder filled with a sugar-water solution for the bees to feed on till they get established in their new home.  The bees went through a quart of this sugar-water by 1:00p, and I replaced the jar with a new one.  Tiny holes in the lid allow the bees to draw off the water without it dripping down into the hive.  There is lots of activity around the hive, and lots of bees flying in, out, and all about.

So what does this mean for you?  It's too early to say, but it may well be that in the next year or two, the beeswax in some of our products, such as our lotion bars and lip balms, might come from the bees we have raised ourselves.  In any event, we're looking forward to lots of fresh honey when the time comes.