Today, we drove up to Loveland to collect our two colonies of bees. This is a pretty long post and not all that related to Pickles, but pretty cool and he did get to experience it all with us.
Mark ordered bees through the Northern Colorado BeeKeeper's Association who drives to California each year to pick up bees for its members. Here is the truck with all the cases of bees unloaded.
The new proud parent of 2 x 3 lb packages of Minnesota Hygienic Bees.
There were quite a few bees outside the package buzzing around the car window;, Pickles was very curious.
Julie, our bee mentor, came over to help with the installation process.
Homemade bee suit
First step was to pry the feeding can out of the top of the box and remove the queen. Here is the queen, still in her cage surrounded by a mob of attendants. They isolate the queen in a cage so that they bees don't kill her. After she spends some time with them (in her cage) they will accept her. Mark replaced a small cork in the cage with a mini marshmallow, by the time the bees eat through it in a day or two they should accept the queen and she can crawl out and join them.
After the queen (in her cage) is hung in the hive, everyone else needs to go in. At this point, the normal technique is to bang the box of bees and try to knock as many as possible into the hive.
Pickles was too enthusiastic about helping so he got tied up and banished to his lawn chair where he watched politely.
Here are the bees learning to use the door to their new home.
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