Bees receive their first visitors!

Even though the sun wasn't shining and the wind was blowing the bees had visitors today. Mr. Wilson and Ms. Corona's class walked from ESH to see how the season has begun for the bees.

The students gathered around the apiary with the hopes of seeing some bees. 

In order to catch a glimpse it was necessary to take the cover off one of the hives to see if any bees were gathered around the feeder. Success! This time of year the bees need to have access to some sugar water in order to supplement their collected nectar. The plastic object on the hive is just such a feeder. 

Since the cold bees weren't very active we looked at the beekeeper's gear and an frame full of comb.

The class asked some very thoughtful questions and were very well behaved. The bees are grateful for the attention and look forward to maybe being out and about the next time Mr. Wilson and Ms. Corona's class comes for a visit! Enjoy the honey!

Box o' Bees!!

We recently received our new supply of bees. They come by the pound in specially built containers - wood on four sides, screen on the other two. They also have a small cage inside for the queen and a can of sugar water fort the bees to eat. They buzz all the time and 15,000 bees can be quite noisy!

The top picture is the 3lb box of bees and the one below it is a closeup of the queen cage. The bees on the cage are the attendant bees that take care of the queen.

Bee Season 2015 - Preview!

Some sad news from the apiary - the two hives we helped to get ready in the fall did not make it through the winter. While we don't know exactly what happened, the reason is probably complex. It's not rare for hives to fail during the winter - several other local beekeepers also lost hives this past winter.

In order to help maintain the apiary two new colonies arrived today. 30,000 new bees! They will be installed in their new home soon. For the moment they are in the container from the supplier. It's a 3lb box of bees with about 15,000 total workers and one queen. The queen is in a small wooden cage inside the larger box. This allows us to place her directly into the hive. The workers will follow her and stick around to do their work. Happy pollinating!!