Settling In

Spent part of the weekend working on getting the finishing touches put together on the new home for the Bees. After getting them all situated last Wednesday, I decided that the area where they are going to reside needed a bit of sprucing up to make them feel right at home. To recap... this is the before:

Not bad.... but not exactly what the girls were dreaming of.... So a little elbow grease, some plants, and a bit of mulch and we ended up with this:

I worked created a stepping stone path that curves up the hill and around to the back of the hive which is where all of the work gets done from. That defined the edge of a new bed around the base of the tree. I used a reclaimed chunk of concrete as a base for my bird bath and planted the area with some bee balm (naturally), heliotrope, and impatients. In  the bed in front of the hive I planted three hostas, one of which we salvaged last weekend from Jason's house that we are selling. Then I used the old bench base that we found in the yard last year as a pot stand and planted some more impatients. The bees can drink about a liter of water a day, so Jason had the idea of using our old "cat water-er" for them. (The blue thing) I put a piece of broken brick in to keep them from falling in and drowning..... They don't really seem that interested in it, but we'll see. Maybe once it is warmer out and they aren't getting the sugar water they'll be more inclined to check it out.

I worked out there for most of the day on Sunday and the bees didn't really seem to mind which was good. Of course I did my best to stay out of the landing pattern! I did get stung tonight for the first time. It was entirely my fault because I decided to try and feed them again and it was way too late to disturb them. One of the girls got me right on the cheek below my eye. Luckily, other than a bit of redness there wasn't any other reaction so apparently I'm not allergic. Lesson learned!

Here's a short video of the girls at work on Saturday.... if you watch closely you'll see a couple of them coming in with their "hip flasks" full of bright yellow pollen.

I'm looking forward to checking in on them on Saturday which will be my first official "hive inspection" to make sure that the queen is out and laying and that they are pulling out combs. For that I'll need to put on my full suit and fire up the smoker. Should be an adventure!