Mentoring

I love putting in packages of bees. It is such a fun experience. Here is what a package of bees looks like. The small box in front holds about 3 lbs of bees, a queen and a can of sugar water. We have to get those bees out, install the queen properly and close the big box behind - without getting stung.

That is the plan. It worked out pretty close to plan as well. These are Owen's bees. The only hitch we had was that the tab holding the queen broke and she fell into the mass of bees making it a bit harder to install her cage properly.  Thank goodness for duct tape is all I am going to say.

Owen did a tremendously good job with this. It is a scary thing to do the first time. However the moment it is over, you just want to do it again! Over the next week or so the bees will chew the sugar candy holding the queen in her cage and they will start building wax. It will be a thing of beauty.

And before any experienced beekeepers out there have a cow, he did paint his other box and swap these frames into that box.

Go bees!