Gimme Some Sugar

Come on now
Gimme some sugar
Gimme some sugar
Little honey bee
-Tom Petty, "Honey bee"

We are now the proud caretakers of a backyard hive of honeybees, thanks to my father-in-law and the good folks at Brushy Mountain Bee Farm. Hopefully, this will provide us with a source of honey and the bees will help pollinate the garden and the other flowers in the yard. We (and by that I mean my wife) successfully hived a swarm of bees that arrived today in the mail. She grew up keeping bees with her dad as her 4H project so she knew what to do after a little refresher reading. Her dad gave us one of their old hives and with a little TLC and some new replacement parts it was refurbished and ready to go. The swarm arrived today in this box, complete with a separate container to house the queen. The bees are collected around it so it's hard to see in this photo. The plan is to let them get acquainted with their new hive and then check on them in a week. Luckily, that will be Memorial Day weekend and my father-in-law will be visiting so he can get to see inside the hive and tell us how they are doing.