My Honey Bees are back! After taking last summer off due to colony collapse, I am happy to announce I am once again a beekeeper! In anticipation for their grand arrival, Dad cleaned out my Chuck BEEly Hive to welcome them to Maine. As with my previous colonies, these Honey Bees are from an apiary in Georgia. A fellow beekeeper did the long roundtrip drive from Maine to Georgia to pick them up and deliver them. They arrived in their own special travel box, complete with food, a Queen protected her cage, and according to the apiary that packaged them, approximately 10,000 bees!

I told Asa to count to make sure they were all in there, while pondered what needed to be done to release them.

First step to welcoming them to their new home was for Dad to remove the can that contained their food for the trip.

That in turn released the bees from inside their travel nuc box.

Some began to inspect and move into their new hive immediately.

While other stayed close to their Queen, as Dad removed the plug keeping her in her travel cage. There is also candy in there keeping the Queen inside. So it is the job of her Nurse Bees to eat the candy to release her into the new hive.

As Dad moves the Queen to the hive, more Honey Bees follow.

Then Dad must gently rebuild the hive, making sure they have what remains of their travel food, as well as extra food he’s added to the hive. They’ll no doubt be hungry after their long journey.

Next we just wait, while the Honey Bees happily move into their new home, release their Queen inside of it, and start foraging for food in our yard.

We’ll check on them again in a few days to make sure they’re doing ok. But right now I’m just dreaming of the delicious honey they’ll be making!