Well, the bees were finally ready. We purchased 2 nucs from a local apiary. After a minor mishap with a lid becoming loose on one nuc while transporting in the back seat of our 95 Accord, the bees and son are well. Note: the back seat of some passenger cars are not exactly flat. The slight difference in height caused one nuc to ride up above the adjesent nuc there by exerting a slight upward force on the lid that let some of the bees out. After traveling about a half of mile from the apiary I noticed 1 bee flying around. Oh well, one probably was hiding under the lid. Oh look, another bee. Oh boy, this does not look good. So I pulled over and lifted the towel that I placed over the nucs to keep the sun off of them. Oh look, about 30 bees under the towel. Houston, we have a situation, so we turned around and headed back to the apiary.
Did I mention that my son was in the back seat and he does not especially like bees yet? He huddled in the back with his head down and we made a successful reentry into the apiary without bee contact. The owner of the apiary was vacuuming the bees out of our car and I was thinking a truck sure would come in handy. At that moment, someone from our town with a pickup, who had come to pick up his nucs, pulled into the driveway. Talk about serendipity. Our nice friend put our two nucs with his and we were off. Other then being the hottest day that we have had all year, (it was 90F), the install went very smoothly.
Link to you tube video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgzGK5DsaRs
3 comments:
I'm jealous of the bees. I kept them for 25(?) years but don't have any right now. In addition to the honey I always found that my gardens produced much greater yields when I had bees, or if my neighbors did. Right now I rely on the wild bees and my neighbor's hives.
Cheers,
-Walter
what method do you use to get your bees off the super for harvest?
Hello Karl
I am new to this BEE project.
My intent for this year is to get a hive through the winter.
The Blue hive is thriving and the pink hive is not progressing much.
This has been their behavior since we got them. Every time I have opened and searched for the queen in the pink hive I founder her and it looks like she was laying viable eggs and larva was visible. But the pink hive did not expand much.
If all goes well maybe next year the Bees can spare some Honey for us.
WBF
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