Bee Batch # Two

I don't know what happened to our poor little bees. They didn't make it through the winter. The mysterious thing is that they didn't all die in the hive. Only a handful were left and there was still a ton of honey for them.  Either they swarmed and then died because of our harsh winter, or they were the sad result of the confusing colony collapse disorder.  Either way, we got new bees. On April 14th, we went to Trees and Bees and picked up our new Italians.

It's actually funny how calm our kids are around bees now. There were so many bees flying around and they didn't even bat an eye.

Berg and Opal were so cute eating their lunch together there.

The next day, Peter had to work so I asked Miss Kim if she would come help me put the new bees in and she said, "Yes!". Good thing too, cause it really is a two person job. She had to cover the hole on the bee box while I got the queen out and put her in first and then we dumped the other bees in on top of her and put the frames back in.

 It went super smooth and fast except for the fact that I put the queen in upside down which meant she was blocked and couldn't get out!  I had to go back the next day and free her from her cage by myself. But she was cooperative and crawled right out onto my finger and into the hive. They're all still there so hopefully that means they like their queen, but we haven't checked them yet so we'll have to do that soon.

Thanks for being such a good sport future bee keeper Kim and great pictures, Eben!