As usual, lots of activity in Honeybee Zen. Happy happy happy!
Not so sure what's happening with the swarm hive - Butterfly Zen. I don't see much pollen...
When we came back a week later, on a HOT day, we saw THIS at Honeybee Zen. POW!
Fly! Fly! Fly! But always come back with LOTS of pollen.
I'd come to add a box on top for them to grow into. Apparently they'd already grown into the feeder box I'd forgotten I'd left on. Oops.
I pulled up the other side, not quite sure what to do. The feeder box isn't all that tall - 4-5", maybe. And of course no top bars.
Finally I decided to pull off the whole cloth. SO BEAUTIFUL. The honey just glistened in the sun - it was like diamonds.
Shiny...and look at those lovely patterns of comb.
Lots of bees stuck to the cloth - I gave them a shake off in front of the hive. They were SO docile.
In front of the hive just before I shook them off. See the patterns they made on the cloth? We were licking honey off of that cloth and sharing it with friends for the rest of the afternoon when we got home - our very first taste of our very first honey by our own bees! MANNA!
My busy busy girls. They didn't care at all about me today - barely even noticed me messing about everywhere.
How amazing are they? Look at that fine work they did!
See how I added the other box on TOP of the little feeder box there? Temporarily - I'm going to take out the feeder box - I just need a big pan or cookie sheet or something to slide it into so I don't spill honey everywhere.
My tiny little swarm hive. I'm still not sure what is going on in there, but it looks as though there are more bees today than the other day. I took one of their boxes to add to the larger hive, but I might need to get another one in there soon, it seems. Maybe?
