Bees

My dad is taking a class about bees and honey making, and he now has two bee hives. We were able to go up last weekend and take a look inside. It was strangely fascinating. I was a little creeped out at first because there were hundreds of bees climbing over one another. I'm not a huge fan of bugs, let alone ones that can sting you, but after a little while I got used to it and it was really fun.

You can see the honeycomb that they have built up on the frames. They fill parts of it with honey, and the other part is where they keep the larvae.

The thing they are pointing at is called a queen cell. A new queen bee is developing in it. They removed it because it causes trouble when there are two queens. One is either killed, or the hive swarms. This is when the hive splits and half the bees follow the new queen to a different nest.

Here they are looking for the queen bee.

These are the guard bees. They check everyone that enters the hive to make sure they belong. They are there to keep other bees and bugs out. That's right....they are bouncer bees.

Here is Luke playing with the bees. I was really jealous of his hat!

This is the smoker. It has a small bellows hooked on the side to puff the smoke out. It makes the bees more docile.

   

Luke is adding another story onto the hive. They put empty frames in and the bees build the honeycomb on them. We are filling the feeder with a mixture of sugar water and pollen stimulator.