LAYING OUT THE RED CARPET

As planned, Joshua showed up right at 5 a.m. at Tara and Lyle’s to make his attempt to relocate the colony in their water meter. We always move honeybees before daylight or after sunset when the largest number – hopefully all – of the folks will be back in their home for the night. I was busy with guest breakfast service so regrettably we have no pictures of him scooping and vacuuming the honeybees into their ‘travel trailer’. Once he believed he had the queen and many of the colony, he left the enclosure right beside the open meter in hopes any stragglers would hop aboard. While this is not a huge colony they had a respectable couple of combs built so we are hopeful. He returned an hour or so later and was thankful to leave only a couple of girls behind. No one likes the vacuum technique but even with this aggravation, the girls behaved gently and he experienced no face pinging. Once here, up the trail we went.

He moved my little perch and placed their new digs beside one of the existing colonies. The girls gladly went in and immediately began work around Queen Kathleen. We may supplement feed them for a bit just to jumpstart their acclimation.

Talk about an epitome of doe eyes!