A mirror behind the hive lets us see the bees on the back. Several
sugar syrup/honey feeder ports supply the bees with extra food during
times of low nectar flow. |
Clear tubing allows us to see the bees enter and exit the hive.
Tubing connects to a hole in the wall to give bees access to the outside
world.
Workers tending capped brood cells. |
Lucas holds the package of new bees. The package contains 3 pounds
of bees (about 10,000 workers & a queen). |
Lucas sprays sugar syrup on the bees to feed and calm them down before
opening the package. |
Bees are knocked down to the bottom of the package. |
Sugar syrup feeder can is removed to open the package. |
The queen cage is removed from the package. The cork plug is
removed and replaced with a marshmallow before being placed in the hive.
The workers will eat the marshmallow to free the queen within a day or
so. |
 |
Package bees are emptied into the hive boxes. |
Emptying the package of bees into the observation hive boxes turns out
to be a bit more tricky than emptying bees into a conventional hive. |
