Friday, July 6, 2012

Rainy Day Beekeeping

Today hasn't been a very eventful day. It rained yesterday morning and all day today, so the bees are mostly in their hives and it's also pretty difficult to get around since the terrain is muddy and the car already has problems shifting gears. Oops!

Two days ago though, we were able to go out and transfer a wild hive from their Langstroth hive into one of the top bar hives we made. I'm terrible at taking pictures, but you can see some on Dee's blog - she's the other intern that I live with. After we thought we were finished transferring the hive, we saw the queen land on Dee's veil and then fly off - bad news! We were a little stressed that all our work had been for nothing and the bees would swarm, but the next afternoon the hive was alive and well and ready for the sugar water we had brought them. No need for gloves or veils, either!

Otherwise, it's been easy going the last few days. After it dries out, we want to start experimenting with different woods to make the hives - I'm excited to try bamboo, since it's a strong, fast-growing wood that is readily available on the island.

Dee and I have been playing hours of Monopoly with the boys as well. We're hoping this doesn't become a trend, as playing board games with stir crazy kids in a small space can be exhausting.

Hopefully there will be more interesting bee updates the next time we get the Internet!

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