Another Visitor in The Bee Yard

My beekeeping partner's partner Andrea came down to the bee yard on Friday night. It was her first visit ever.

We actually don't get as many visitors as you might think so it is always special when someone joins us but this was extra special. None of us would have expected Andrea to make a visit on an evening when we had so much to do and there would be strictly seasonal activity going on that we don't do very often.

For example, we had a totally unexpected opportunity to get another package of bees. We had settled on four hives but when it was looking like The Turquoise Bee was going to parish we seized the opportunity when Nature's Nectar, a local beekeeping business ordered 100 additional packages and put them up for sale. So, Andrea got to see us hive a new package and release a queen which really only happens in the early spring.

She also got to see the Queen in Katrina's Drone Den. Now that only two out of five hives have marked Queens it is harder to find them but we did get a good look at one of the marked Queens which I still find exciting!

More importantly though Andrea took some photos of Paula and I working the hives and just being with each other. We don't have many, if any photos of the two of us together so it was really special to get these pictures.

I didn't even know Andrea was taking pictures of us. We had a wee bit of syrup left that we gave to the bees and checked all the other hives.

In this picture we just finished putting the second brood box on Patrick's Pollinator. You may not be able to appreciate the joy in our faces. We had just finished inspecting all of the hives and were really thrilled with our findings and now busting with enthusiasm and joy.