On April 25th, Kris spent some time with our volunteer beekeeper, Henry King. Henry was on the grounds for the day to open one of our hives and release the queen bee, who had been purposefully kept in a ‘queen cage’. In this video, Kris asks Henry some buzzing questions!
As the hive grows, another box like the one Henry is inspecting, will be placed on top of the original box. These two boxes are known as brood boxes, where the queen lays eggs and worker bees tend to the future generations (eggs and larvae) of the colony.
The smoker or smoking tool is a widely used beekeeping tool to keep bee colonies from becoming aggressive while the hive is being worked on. Henry opened the hive without smoking the bees first. As you can see the colony is fairly docile and unbothered by the removal of their roof and feeder. Watch how the bees react as Henry uses the tool. Notice any gloves? Many veteran beekeepers opt out of using gloves due to often accidental crushing of bees. If you look very closely, you will see the queen quickly darts out of the cage and into the safety of the hive.
We will be opening the hive to check in on our new friends often, so stay tuned for updates! If you have any other questions about bees or beekeeping, you can email kriskarpinia@ryenaturecenter.org and he will ask our resident beekeeper the next time we open the hive!