Fourth Day: Observing and Doing

For the past 4 days we have had the opportunity to use the observational hive in the honey house as a quick reference point for the life of bees in 'real time'. Today it was time to split the hive. Beekeepers split the beehive when the hive appears to be getting too full so that the hive itself does not grow a new queen and half of the hive ends up taking off with the new queen. Those who felt able put their beekeeping skills to work.

In additon to spliting the observation hive a couple campers also got to practice marking the bees. Sometimes a beekeeper will mark the queen bee so that she can be easily identified however we now have several marked bees flying around Bailey's Bay with purple abdomens and red wings. Let's just say that one particular person got carried away with the bee markings...:) A new term was also coined to identify this new proceedure called 'beetox' or cosmetics for bees.

We also had a chance to finish painting our bee supers, extracted more honey, painted several more frames and dyed beeswax for molds and candles. In the afternoon, Mr. Thomas Sinclair, Vice President of the Bermuda Beekeeping Association came and spoke with us about bees and beekeeping. Just before the day ended we took a walk around Fractious Street to see exactly where our bees were collecting their pollen.

Overall, we hope that the marked bees are happy with their new look:)