My bees have arrived!

On Saturday, May 25th, I went to another local beekeeper and bought my Nucleus Colony (Nuc). I got to pick from a few different Nuc's and chose the one recommended to be by the more experience beekeeper. We brought our hive with the screen board attached and the inner lid bungee corded on. Eyebrows were raised at the type of hive we have, but we soon figured it would all work just fine. The important thing was the frames fit, the bees had ventilation and could not escape on our drive home.

The Nuc we transported in our van to bring to their new home.

We arrived just before 8 am on a cloudy cool day. Fortunately it was not raining. We drove around to where the bees were kept and got suited up. Once we were ready to go we opened a few hives and began handling the frames looking for brood, queens and queen cells. It was amazing. I got to finally see what I have only seen on a You Tube video, in person. I was surprised by how able I was identify all of the parts, find a queen and understand everything that was explained to me. I was only able to do that because of how much I studied and let myself be consumed by the study of the apiary world. Although I am a novice, I feel as prepared for this as I possible could be. Kind of like studying for the final then passing the test.

Installing my first Nuc in my yard.

After our adventure at the bee farm, we headed home to set up our hive. We installed our "screen", two old doors screwed to 4x4 posts, so the bees would not fly directly into the sidewalk. I angled the entrance of the hive to face South East, like most of the bee books tell me, which is facing the green door. The bees are forced to fly up then out to forage and therefore safe for any passerby's to walk by without noticing the hive. The hive is set up in my front yard but very close to all of my gardens.

My honeybee on one of my Peonies.

As soon as the bees entrance was opened a few brave bees ventured out to see what was going on. This was around 1pm Saturday afternoon. It was about 65 degrees and sunny, so soon there were curious bees floating around my yard. I was surprised there was no big swarm, or an exodus of bees from the hive to orient themselves. Instead they came out one by one and only about 100 came out that I saw. I tested their gentleness that day by walking close to their hive and was never noticed. So of course I  went in and grabbed my camera and tried to capture the new girls flying around my yard.

We spent the rest of the day sitting on the side of my garden bed watching the entrance of the hive. They were busy trying to acclimate to their new surroundings and some already started gathering pollen.

Our bees buzzing around their new home.