Pollen Patch Bee Farm

Over the last month I have set up four hives, two in each pollen patch. This way I can compare and contrast the hives at the same location with each other and then with the hives at the other location. I purchased nucleus colonies from a local beekeeper. Nucleus colonies are small colonies with an established and mated queen. They usually include four or five frames of brood (eggs, larva and capped brood) and food (pollen, nectar and covered honey cells). It was important for me to purchase local bees because they had survived a Pennsylvania winter and they were accustomed to the food sources in this area.

Setting up the hives was pretty easy and straight forward. Probably easier than setting up this blog. A few days before I was scheduled to pick up the nucleus colonies Shane, my husband, and I went out to each site and set up cinder blocks and the hives that the colonies would be moving into. The first set up went very smoothly. The second was a little more involved. I thought I found the perfect spot at the bottom of a pretty big hill. We lugged four cinder blocks, two wooden platforms, two bases, two brood boxes, ten frames, two inner covers and two telescoping covers and two boxes filled with approximately 10,000 bees down to that spot before I changed my mind and decided that the top of the hill would be a better location so up the hill we went. After we picked up the bees we set them on top of the hive and slid open the front of the “nuc” box so they could get acclimated to the new area for a few hours. I came back a couple of hours later to place the bees in their new home. I gave them a few puffs of smoke and moved each frame from the “nuc” box to the brood box keeping them in the same order and placing them in the center of the box. I placed an additional five frames in each box and put the inner cover and telescoping lid on top.

Since then, I have completed weekly hive checks. Most times I am able to identify the queen other times I am able to identify signs that she has been there recently. I’ve learned to identify eggs, larva and capped worker and drone brood. I have also learned that bees exhibit a behavior called festooning when they are “Queen Right” which means they have a queen in the colony. Festooning is where bees link themselves together and form chains with their bodies. Ants do this too.