Flowers of Summer

Bees are busy on the Oregano blossoms (tiny white flowers).

The Bees are back!

We can't "bee"lieve it! A new group of bees have decided to build in the same exact sprinkler box. I asked DS back to offer these bees to him. He came quickly, but boy these bees build fast! This was built in 2 days! DS took this first picture. The other 2 are by me. This time I wasn't able to help out with the "cutout". I had some deadlines with my Freelance work doing animation stuff. This group was a much smaller group than the first, but we're guessing they are from the same mother hive, they were just as gentle as the first group. They really must love this spot to keep building in it. I must have a destiny to keep bees someday...

Update on the Bees

I'm sad to say the bees decided they didn't like their new home in the Langstroth hive. D.S. said that the bees left the hive early Friday morning.(D.S. came on Wed afternoon to our house) They left a memoire for D.S. I feel so sad for D.S. He worked so hard and did his best, but I guess we just don't know enough about the bees just yet.

Hands On Learning about Bees

We decided to donate the newly formed beehive. Right now, I'm too busy with garden building to manage a new hive. I don't know much about bee-keeping anyhow. I had a great opportunity to help a local bee-keeper who is just starting out with an Organic Apiary business in South Pasadena. We'll call him D.S. He brought me an extra bee-veil so I can be protected while observing. At first, that's all I was planning on doing, observe. But soon, I jumped in and helped with whatever I could. Here's the close-up of the cute little bugs:

The Smoker, it's filled with wood chips and news papers

Here, D.S. is teaching me how to make a hammock for the pieces of hive that we'll be taking out of the establised hive.

Now I'm doing it all by myself, still not sure how it will be used.

This is how it's used. I did this! (With a LOT of coaching from D.S.)

Here is the Langstroth hive D.S. brought over to move the bees into.

After a lot of smoke and some patience, D.S. was able to open up the hive in the Sprinkler Box.

Here's another view: the bees are busy gorging themselve on the honey because they are alarmed by the smoke

More bees gorging themselves with honey

We've moved most of the pieces of hive that were extracted from the sprinkler box. These had the growing broods of bee larvae. The hives that had the honey and pollen were put into a bucket and sealed.

Here D.S. is shaking some bees off of the honey/pollen combs so he can take put the combs into the square bucket.

Here is a view of the hive that seemed empty, but it turned out to be full of the larvae. If you look, you can see that the left side has the larger larvae and it gets smaller towards the right. That's because their hatching date differs as the Queen Bee keeps laying in newly made cells.

I've decided that I'd like to eventually start bee-keeping. Perhaps I'll be more knowledgeable by next season when they swarm once again. Thank you D.S. for sharing your knowledge with me and allowin me to experience this!

Bees in our garden

It's warm and of course all the trees are blossoming. The bees are busy making honey, but more importantly, many are swarming and making clusters to start new hives. One swarm decided to start a hive in our front yard sprinkler system box. This box is not in use as we've turned off the system for the winter months, but now we're wondering what we should do with these bees. I've contacted a local bee club to see if these bees might be AHBs (Africanized Honey Bees) but they told us if they were, they would be attacking you if you were close enough to take that picture. of the box. We are considering learning how to keep a hive. Does anyone know how?