Tuesday, May 09, 2017

Town House Homestead Tuesday

The Town House Homestead now has it's first colony of bees. What an experience so far. Getting  a garden tilled, putting plants in, painting boxes, and then the trip to get them.


It was a one hour drive south of home to pick them up. You enter a driveway in your car, are given a tag with your order on it, drive up and they load a nuc, or many in your vehicle. Drive through bees. 


This is one colony of bees in the trunk of my daughter's car. On the one hour trip back we had one lose bee, but she may have entered when we had the windows open to do business. The process took less than fifteen minutes. 


When we arrived back home my daughter carried the nuc to the back yard and set it on top of the hive box and pulled the plug allowing them to come and go. It's been a week of very wet and cold weather, so she had to watch the weather to get them homed.


Fortunately we got a break between storms and the transfer was made. They were not happy, but did a great job settling in.


I was only brave enough to stand with the dog in the pen to take pictures, but fearless daughter got the five frames moved.


She added the cover and got them protected as quickly as possible. The next move would be to get them some food since it's been rainy and cold and they are not coming out to forage.


She temporarily added a jar of sugar water to the outside and left the empty transport box next to the hive box so any stragglers could find their way to the hive.


A few ladies here were discussing their plans to move. The next evening they were gone so they may have found their way in.


It was a great relief knowing they were in and it's been a long week waiting for the bad weather to stop, but yesterday a few started venturing out and looking around.


Since the initial transfer she has added a second box containing sugar water so they had something on the inside and could stay dry and hopefully warm. It's going to be warmer today and maybe a bit sunnier so I may see more activity. I didn't get as much of the garden around them planted as I wanted, but when they develop their flight path I can try and work around them. I'm an anxious gardener and I want to see it grown in quickly. 


Blossoms are starting to pop out around the yard. These are apple blossoms on a very sick tree that will need to come down, but for this spring we are going to leave it.


Hunter needed a bath. It's been nothing but mud here and he enjoys digging in it. He also thought that the dead bees around the hive were yummy, started licking the robber screen and chewing the corner, so today he goes out on a tether. Poor guy, but he was lucky no guard bees came out before I was able to call him away. He's developing well. In four weeks he's doubled in size. His first weigh in had him at six pounds two ounces, but last night he weighed in at twelve pounds six ounces. I think he's going to be a good addition to the homestead. In another month we'll start obedience classes. Until then he has to keep learning from us, but he is getting better every day. That's what's been happening at the Town House Homestead. Thank you for stopping by for a visit. I wish everyone a great week.

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