New bees, and beekeeper

K8 has decided to join me in raising bees. We bought a "Nuc" last week - an already started mini-hive with a queen and her bees with 4 frames of wax, brood, and honey. He has his own gloves, veil, and smoker.

Wish we had thought to take pictures sooner, but we had already moved the frames and bees out of the little Nuc box and into their new home. K8 was fascinated with the bees, and worried about all the bees left in the Nuc box. Not to worry, they will smell their queen, and fly into their new home.

I told him to keep the Nuc box in case he catches a swarm of bees next spring. We can keep them temporarily in this little box.

We'll add another box on top of the first one in a few weeks.

We also needed to open up the big hive...

...so I could remove the queen excluder (the wire grill covered with worker bees). I have decided to let the queen have total run of her hive in which to lay brood (eggs for replacement bees - bees only live for 21 days and then die, so the queen spends her 3 to 4 year life span laying eggs to replace her workers).

This is what was under the excluder. Happy bees roaming all over frames that hold brood and honey.

At this moment, K8 was stung by a bee that got inside his shirt and under his veil. He took this last shot before retreating. No, he is not giving up on bee keeping. He was laughing about it when I caught up with him soon afterward. All the bees on the excluder will return back to the hive.