First Draft Farm

The honeybees arrived on Thursday, May 23. I drove to Holland, MI, to pick up two packages of them, each containing about 10,000 insects! While I was nervous about putting these in my enclosed Rav4, the bees hummed quietly on the long road home. They spent the night in the tack room (with the chickens) before being moved to their permanent hives at Four Green Fields Farm just down the road.

The two packages of bees ready to be put in the car on Thursday. They were actually pretty docile-- a few loose bees landed on me, and then just flew away.  

The bees waiting to be put in their new home.

A can of corn syrup is included with each package of bees so they have food during transport. If you look closely, you can see bits of wax on the can where the bees were starting to build comb.

To get to the bees out of the box, you have to remove the can .

After removing the can, you take the queen cage, which holds the queen bee and her attendants. The queen cage includes a piece of candy (the white block at the top of the cage).  A small cork is removed on the side of the cage where the candy is-- the queen and her attendants, and the worker bees eat through the candy. After a few days, the queen can get out of her cage and start ruling the hive.

Posing for a quick photo after the installation-- what you don't see is all the bees swarming around! (No one was stung during this process-- honey bees aren't aggressive and won't sting unless they feel threatened).