Bees!

Today was a wonderfully hot, sunny day. We appreciated not only because it provided a welcome break from all the rain, but because it was a perfect opportunity to finally check up on our bees.

Jon volunteered to don the bee suit, meaning he was the one to do all the close up work. Bonita yelled instructions to him from a safe distance, and I took pictures.

Jon started by smoking the bees. By gently blowing a bit of smoke around the entrance and

over the top of the hive, we trick the bees into thinking that the forest is on fire: they quickly get to work eating honey, so that they can move their food to a new, fire-less area. This means that they are too busy to notice a beekeeper poking around the hive. By reapplying smoke every few minutes, we can keep the already gentle bees occupied and make the whole process as easy as pie!

Since we got them in late May, our Italian breed, extra-gentle bees have been busily working at filling up their new home with honey and brood. Now that it is well into summer our hive needs room to expand! It was time to add the "super" to our hive, a box of honeycomb trays that sits on top of the hive and stores honey for human consumption. Because of a nifty "queen excluder" screen that fits between the super and the rest of the hive, the worker bees can fill the super with honey, but the queen (who is larger than worker bees) can't lay her eggs there.

The expedition into hive territory went off without a hitch. Soon (I hope) we'll be able to taste the fruits of our labors!