The Bee Keeper Came to Visit!

Dennis arrived this morning to check on his bees.....all 240,000 of them!
see the bees here!

Once again, he was just so wonderful at explaining all the amazing facts about bee behaviour! It is totally fascinating! His main reason for checking them today was again to look for the varroa mite that could have contaminated his hives. Here he is doing something called the sugar roll! He put some icing sugar powder in a jar, took out one of the frames (not sure that is the correct word) that has hundreds of bees crawling around - and brushed a few of them into the jar. He then rolled them around in the jar, with the idea that if there were mites on any of the bees they would jump off the bee and you'd see it on the inside of the glass jar! Pretty sophisticated eh!!!

We spent about an hour with him, as he went from one hive to the next, pulling out each of the frames, showing us where the Queen was, what the drones looked like, which cells had eggs in them....what the royal jelly looks like, which is fed to the queen! all totally astonishing. I've been watching some of the little worker bees as they flit around the garden, lots of activity - and of course they look so cute with their little sacks of pollen on their legs. Dennis also told me that all the different stages of jobs are done by all the female bees at some point in their life. I was able to get up very close to them, and wasn't stung....mind you Dennis used some smoke to keep them calm. He did get one sting while he was messing around...but he was wearing gloves at that point. So far he's happy to find them mite free!

It's July 1st, which is Canada Day....we're off to a party this evening then perhaps down to Baddeck Bay to watch the fireworks.

Oh yes, and it's really hot and summer out....i'm loving it!