New Sweet Home

Here is my last post about the bees' moving day.

After the beekeepers took the old stump apart (see the background of this photo) they put the bees into new colony boxes. These boxes, which the beekeeper is grabbing in the photo above, hold square plates where bees can build their new honeycomb. Then the beekeepers take the colony home where they can use it to harvest honey.

Here is the results of the beekeeper using the beevac - a vacuum modified to pull bees into this container. I really liked this photo, with all the bees inside as a mottled mess. But that mottled mess would not show up on newsprint.

To calm them down, one beekeeper sprayed honey on the bees.

The honey made them all stick together, like a thick bee ball. The other beekeeper rotated the container around a few times, turning it over and over. Once the bees were well stuck together, they opened the container and plopped the bee ball into the colony box. Then they quickly covered the colony box with a screen and duct tape.

Unfortunately I missed the moment when they dropped the bees into the box. That was right about when I got stung. And the photos I took of the new colony box are not worth showing here. So I'll leave it up to your imagination.