Beekeepers Look Up!

This is a swarm of honey bees......."our" bees this time. Up in "our" tree from one of "our" hives..... My goodness this has been a very "bizzy" year. Last year was busy but we only had one major hive and the busy part was going out to calls and rescuing swarms. Well, this year we have those same swarms that became "our" hives over the year and trying to keep the girls from wanting to swarm, which by the way is in their nature, plus rescuing swarms, has been,well, just plain "Bizzy"!
My husband and his brothers tried to get these girls down but wasn't able to, so we called a husband/wife team in. They have been married for 48 years this year and he has been around honey bees all of his life. His dad had honeybees! Experience.....it's a good thing:o)The girls had settled on a small branch at around 52 feet in the tree. This top picture you can see when he shook the small limb on how they scattered in flight. The queen went into the box and the others followed her. We held it up there for a few minutes to let them settle and then lowered it down.

I have these pictures out of order but the one below here is of them raising the pole with the line up above the swarm, see our little future beekeeper? He is so precious, he's three and goes just about everywhere with them, he's their grandson and he loves his grandpa's bees.

The picture above here is when the pole reaches above the bees, they then lower the rope over the top of the branch of bees, bring it on down and tie the box to the rope and pull it up again.
Notice they aren't wearing bee suits??? And he is wearing dark brown??? Honeybees are at their calmest when they swarm. I kept thinking "I need to go suit up, I need to suit up" but for goodness sakes! look at the little guy! I honestly believe insects as well as animals can sense fear. There was no fear of the bees and actually I was very calmed by their fearlessness and experience, plus after all these girls were mine they "know" me right? lol

We were all so proud of me ;o) No stings, you just have to remember don't swat at them even if they are buzzin in your face...they just want to know who you are. :o)

I was so glad I had my other nuc box, it came in very handy....another home sweet home. :o)
After they left and things settled down I got into another hive to cull out queen cells....we didn't want this to happen again. Here is a new queen, just a bit to the right of my tweezers. She has a larger more pronounced spot behind her head. Her body is more of a honey color without the stripes like the workers have.

And look at the different colors of the pollen! It's beautiful! Depending on what type or kind of flower(s) they gather from is what color the pollen will be.

Look high up in the tree....what is it that you see?

BEE Courageous!

Julie