Welcome Home.

Newly constructed bases in place waiting for the bees to arrive...

They are here!!!!  Now to gently place the heavy hive boxes on the stands.  There is mesh over the opening of the hives to prevent the bees from filling the back of the truck in transport.

You may ask... What does smoke do for the bees?  It actually calms them, making inspection and caring for them easier on them and us.  There are two theories of how this works.  1.  Historically bees made homes in trees.  When the inevitable forest fire would move through, the bees would get busy with fanning the hive (to keep it cool) and engorge on honey so if they had to move quickly to a new home they had precious honey to take with them.  2.  The smoke hides the scent of the alarm pheromones that the worker bees produce to alert the hive that there is an intruder.  With the scent hidden in the smoke, no alarm can be sent. 

Another way to keep the bees calm as we are checking out their home, or in this case relocating their home, is sugar water.  When you spray them with the sugar water they become incredibly preoccupied with cleaning the sugar up they loose intest in the intruder.  Kinda like the free food samples at places like Sam's Club or BJ's keep you distracted from your actual shopping.

The move is complete.  Now we leave the bees alone and let them get used to their new home.

If you don't pinch a bee, it is really rather harmless.  Here is George holding a sweet little girl bee.  Our new friend, Connie, who we adopted the bees from, said they were docile, nice bees.  We were a little skeptical of that statement, but moving day went well and it took no time for the bees to get used to their new home.  We are so thankful to give these bees a new home.  You may wonder why Connie was needing to find a new place for  her bees...  Well, she was moving to Indiana and that is a far way to transport bees.  I wouldn't want to do it.