Sunday afternoon, the bees arrived at the farm, a day late after being stuck in a snowstorm in the Rockies. Below is an attempt to show you just how they were hived.
They are shipped in boxes containing the bees (10,000 per box), one queen in a separate cage, and a can of food (sugar water).
Getting set up.
Opening the boxes.
The queen bee.
Placing the queen in the hive. On Wednesday Keith will remove her from her cage.
Dumping the bees into the hive.
Tumbling bees.
Unfortunately we only caught the tail end of the dump on video.
Bees in the hive.
Closing up the hives.
Our intern Lori Watley helping out.
BEAUTIFUL! Man, that’s exciting! I’ll be curious to hear if you guys can detect any direct effects of honey bee pollination on the plants…or the interns.