On George’s birthday in January, I bought him a bee hive kit from Amazon. He’d been talking about it forever so I just did it. Since then, he has joined a bee club and has taken classes on how to be a beekeeper. We bought two NUCs (nucleus colony) that arrived a few days ago. They come in the white boxes you see below with five frames. George had to move them to the new hive boxes as soon as they arrived, which had to be at night while they were inactive. You can still see them moving in the next day.
One NUC box had swarm cells on two frames, so on the advice of his mentor, George placed those back in the white box hoping they would make a home for themselves thus having three hives! The swarm cells are the peanut-looking cacoons in the photo, they are located on the rims of the frame. These peanuts hold baby queens, but if they are found in the center of the frame, the bees are usually preparing to replace their existing queen due to her age.
George has plans to move them into a new hive box very soon! I will admit that this photo gives me the willies, seeing so many bees gives me anxiety. I have been stung before by bees and even a wasp, but to be safe, we have an epi-pen nearby. George has been stung four times already and did not react.
The photo below doesn’t give me the willies because the bees aren’t on top of one another. This is of the frame with the third swarm cell, you can see how close it is to the rim. I didn’t expect the brood caps that cover the baby bees to look so fuzzy, like felt.
George placed the hive stands on some 4x4s inside cement blocks. The hives are facing southeast so they will get their morning sunshine, they need that.
As you can see, there is plenty of space between the hives and the house, yet they are right in front of our little fruit orchard. He has recently taken to hot wiring the orchard due to the many deer sampling our young fruit. He included the hives in the fence in case something attracted them.
The deer are eating up the grapes and plums like crazy. You can see the small white posts in the photo below situated behind him, he is making what you call a 3D fence, which is pretty interesting if you look it up. Of course, I wish we could fence the whole yard in a nice tall privacy fence, but it’s not in the budget any time soon. Maybe one day.
I had a lot of feelings about hot wire, I love nature and animals and love it when they come in the yard. I would never want to hurt animals, but George assures me that it is safe.
Bees are incredible little creatures, there are so many interesting facts about them that I hope to share in the future. But until then, thanks for visiting!
♥ tootles ♥
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