Today we went to Clearbrook Minnesota to pick up 4 nuc boxes of bees. A nuc is 4 or 5 frames of bees, brood (eggs) and a queen. We add 4 or 5 frames of stored honey frames for them, and then we have a complete hive. These bees came from just north of Beaumont Texas, so they're a long way from home. Each nuc has about 15,000 bees, so we added about 60,000 bees to our place today. As this new hive grows and thrives, we will add more boxes on top for them to expand in, and we'll be back in the bee business this spring. Right now the only natural plants for them are some pussy willows, but soon there will be dandelions, and a few early wildflowers in the woods (wood violets, blood root flowers, and columbine). We will probably give them some pollen patties for a while, and they will use up the stored honey in the spare frames for food. Here are a few photos of the guys putting their frames of bees into our boxes in the nuc yard.
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| Lifting up a frame of bees to put into our bee box | | |
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| Bees everywhere! Bee veils required. |
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| A truck load of Texas bees ready to go to their new home |
2 comments:
Come on Spring - bees need some flowers!!!!
Wow! That's pretty cool!
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