Swat Team Alert

"A Wake County sheriff's deputy found himself

in serious need of a  
SWAT team Tuesday after getting into a standoff 

with a huge swarm of  
bees that covered his police cruiser."
 
I'm giving them big points for the SWAT team pun!
 

Click here to see the whole story complete with picturs

Swat Team

Another story sent to me from the Garden on The Edge shows a unique way of observing bees. 
Click here to see the pictures of the bees under glass. 
Bees will fill the space, no matter where it is. The Langstroth hives that most beekeepers use is designed with what he (Langstroth) discovered to be “bee space” (~3/8”). The space between the frames is just enough that they will build out the comb on each frame but not get carried away and fill it like they did in the jar. There is enough space for two bees to pass one another after the comb has been built out.

Aggie's bees

Our friend Aggie is not able to work with her bees especially during this heat wave.  We went over today to look at the hive and make sure all looked good.

Aggie's hive has two hive body boxes and one souper on top.  The plan is for the bees to raise their young in the lower two hive body boxes and store honey in the top souper which we plan to rob later.








The first frame just had some comb being built out. 

Second frame has about 1/3 of the honey capped.














Third frame about 1/3 capped honey.

Fourth frame, bonanza, Mostly capped honey. 

Fifth frame about 3/4 capped honey.  No pictures of frames 6, 7 and 8 but they were about 1/2 capped honey. 

This is a frame from the top box that was all honey and a lot of it is capped.  This box was very heavy with honey.  The bottom box had capped brood so the queen is still doing her job. 

All and all Aggie's honey bees are  were docile and calm, they must take after Aggie.  They were quiet while we messed in their hive.  No one got stung.
All looks good Aggie.

Off Topic

Can anyone identify this bird?