New Guests staying at The Warren :)

AHHHH bloody blogs and Internet, typed up a blog then lost it all so having to start again....
OK starting a new blog early as we have some new permanent guests at the warren...Bee's :) It started back in march when we went on a bee keepers course and basically it went from there :) We aquired the hives first and set them up at the bottom of the garden, these particular hives are called WBC's.

we cut some of the over head branches away before the next stage as so many branches would block out the bee's flight path and it was hard to work around the hives as well.

Well we ordered 2 queens with 5 frames of brood (eggs, larvae, bee's) and some stores for them (food) which eventually turned up today Wednesday 22nd June. Our postman was the one who turned up with 2 boxes of buzzing bee's lol and after chatting with him about our new hobby i brought them through to the garden. The instructions said i had to place them where the hives would be for 24 hours so that the bee's could forage.

so after taking the roofs off the hives both boxes were placed where they should be

Both boxes had flaps cut into them and taped over, so after getting into my suit i let the bee's out...that was interesting as the 1st box just poured out and climbed up the box then started doing circular flights getting their bearing for their new environment (very interesting watching the ariel display) the second box was a bit quieter but eventually both boxes had bee's flying back and forth. Then it rained so i went back indoors till it stopped...when i got back the bee's were flying further afield but what was interesting was the amount of bee's on the path drinking

Since then I've seen a lot of the bee's already visiting flowers (we have a lot of clover on our lawn) and flying over the fence looking for nectar and pollen, it just shows that the instinct to forage is very strong. I went back down the garden around 9:30 pm and sat and watched one of the boxes...there were a small clump of bee's around the entrance with the odd bee still returning from where ever, tomorrow with the help of Kim we will be opening the nucleus to check on the queen and transfer everything into the hive before leaving them food and closing the hive up till next week. So all in all an interesting day :) i will try and remember to get pictures done as we work tomorrow so you can see what happens next...until then l8rs my friends :)