Bee shelter

So the sad news about the bees is that my first hive died. Butch, the man who sold me the baby hive, said it was probably mites. With all the chaos when Waverly came, I hadn't done my fall bee chores properly. They made it through the winter, but didn't have enough health left to rebuild in the spring, so they dwindled down and died out at the end of April. On the up side, that solved the problem of having to move the bees out of the barn.

I debated about getting another hive. Obviously, I can't work the bees while I'm taking care of Waverly, so that limits the amount of time I have to take care of them. But I felt like I learned so much last year, and it's good for the farm to have the bees around to pollinate. Plus, the bees are cool. So I decided to go for it.

For Mother's Day, Peter built this awesome bee shelter. (The roof isn't quite done yet.)

On Monday, I got another nucleus (baby) hive from Butch. A nuc is 5 frames -- half a box -- of bees, brood (bee babies), and a queen. I moved the bees from the nuc box, which is the box on the left in the photo above, into the brood box on Wednesday afternoon. The bees were so wonderful and gentle. I think this is going to be a good hive.