Mark's New Hobby

Here I am ready to go in my new bee suit which Debbie helped me put together after getting some instructions from my friend and co-worker, Klaus. He got me into this bee business!The helmet was the most fun to make. The netting is glued onto the helmet and the bottom zips on to the overalls. Bees don't like dark colors. That's the reason everything is white.The contraption to catch the bees is made up of a funnel made of wire and netting. The end of the funnel pokes up into the holding area where the bees are trapped.Here is one of the 10,000 bees coming out of the top of the funnel. Each one had to walk through. It took about 3 hours.

Then we closed up the box, taped it up and loaded it into my car. We kept our bee suits on while we drove home as there were a number of bees which got out and were flying around in the car. People along the way gave us funny looks, wondering what planet we had come from. We also took some of the bees nest (brood) along and put it into the hive, just in case we didn't get the queen. They will produce a new queen from the brood if needed. Some sugar water was also put inside the hive to make them feel at home and help them get going. Then we opened the box and dumped them onto the cardboard in front of the hive. After some time they accepted their new home. If all goes well they'll be busy little bees and I'll collect honey in 6 to 12 months. I've found a neighbour down the road who has a number of hives and wants me to collect the honey... provided we leave her some. So that's my next little project to do with Peter while he's home for the holidays.