The Wonders of Bees

On this cloudy Sunday, I got to learn about the wonderful creatures which provide us with golden honey. Jeff the Bee Keeper arrived today at 11:00 while i was chatting outside on the phone...his red truck pulled into the farm and i knew this was my chance to learn about these fuzzy creatures...and so i quickly left a delightful conversation to learn about the magnificent bees. Jeff has been working with bees since he was 14. And he loves them...he has the glow of a person who loves is filled by their work. He gently picks them up avoiding stings and can look down at a swarming bit of cone and find the queen in seconds. Here is what i learned about bees:
1. Young worker bees build honeycomb like crazy...to the point that is a bit annoying and needs to be scraped away.
2. If a queen is not producing enough eggs...the bees will begin building special casings for a new queen. Basically, they get their unwanted queen to lay an egg in the special casing raise up a new queen and kill the old...there is bee mutiny.

3. When the bees become too many for the hive they swarm....

This is a swarm of bees....

(I thought a swarm would be flying bees but they gather...hanging from branches...they send a scout bee out and it is looking for a good hole in a tree....once that is found it comes back and the bees take to the woods for their new home....)
As you can imagine this is problematic for a bee keeper trying to gather honey...because he will loose half his hive...so

The bee keeper must find the swarm and give it a new hive...as you see in this picture....

This is the bees new home...

4. The best thing i learned about bees is they are wonderful...and no matter where i farm...in a city or country...bees are allowed everywhere....and are easily ordered on line:) bees may be my next project....Hopefully i will soon have more adventures in the world of bees!