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04/18/2007: "The Bee Story Continues..."

Houston, we are go for bees.


Here's a look inside the box.


And another.


So yesterday we went out and checked on the bees. We needed to follow the directions for the second day, taking the plug out of the box the queen was in, replacing it with a marshmallow, and adding more frames. We encountered a few problems. It seems that we weren't suppossed to add the pollen patty until the third day, so there were plenty of bees on the pollen, but not around the queen. She looked alive though, thankfully. Additionally, most of the bees were still in the box they arrived in. They were suppossed to crawl out and huddle up with the queen, leaving the box empty. But they didn't do that. Those bees. Anyways, we removed the pollen patty and shook as many bees as possible out of the box and onto the queen. We then left the box next to the hive hoping they would find their way to their sisters. They did! Today there were plenty of bees around the queen and the majority of the bees were in the hive and not the box. The instructions for the third day include removing the queen box and adding the food patty. So we donned the protective gear again and opened the lid. We found that the bees were covering the queen box and didn't want to leave. So here's Nate trying to coax them off through shaking. He ended up getting most off that way and brushing off the few that were left. We didn't see the queen, so we assume she's wandering about her new palace looking for a nursery.


We put the remaining frames in the hive, added a food tray with both sugar water and pollen patty. The instructions say to leave them alone for a few days now, so we'll try our best to let them have some peace. We're suppossed to check for eggs in 6 days, woohoo!


Comments: Bob wrote:

This posting made me happy. I wanna come see!