New Bees in the Garden

I've told you about our friend Joan's bees. In this post from March, I wrote about an epic swarm that split off from her beehive. Well, sadly, the bees continued to produce more swarms, and finally the hive was so weakened that it failed.

George and Joan were debating what to do when things fell into place last week. George's query to his beekeeper group netted an amazingly generous offer from a beek in Hayward to deliver one of his hives to Joan's house.

Bob loaded the bees into his truck; they arrived in Richmond without mishap. 

Bob, George and Joan moved the hive into place. They let the bees out, and some began exploring their new home right away. Joan's garden is a paradise of flowers, bushes and trees. I was amazed to see a bee crawl into a beautiful dangling flower. And of course they loved the Mexican Salvia.

There are techniques to try to minimize swarming, but it seems that the strain of bees we originally gave Joan tend to swarm more than normal. Now that she has a new hive, I think they'll be happy in her garden for a long long time.

You can see the original post on my blog. 

And you can see more of my nature photographs on my website.