Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Honey Bees

The Swarm

You might remember from and earlier post that I am now a beekeeper and I have two honey bee hives in my backyard. It's been a wonderful experience and the bees are so cool and fun to watch.
My first hive swarmed and went up into my bamboo trees. Bees swarm when the colony becomes to be too large and the bees divide up into a second colony. So I captured this swarm and started another hive. Then I noticed first hive had so many drones that the worker bees started kicking them out of the hive. Drones don't produce any honey, so I figure the workers became upset that they were consuming too much honey. The worker bees were just ruthless and kicked the larger drones to the curb. Here are a couple of videos that are a little rough and out of focus, but worth checking out.