Generosity from friends in the bee world has led to our starting a fourth, yes, fourth! bee hive.

We got this really cool small bee box which has a window (“window box”) from farmer Gregg, who raises bees for honey at Orchard Country Produce. I’m a CSA member of his family farm, and Gregg has been helpful in occasionally offering me advice and encouragement in my beekeeping endeavors. The new window box will be so cool for teaching purposes. It can be completely closed, but you can still see the bees through the window, doing their work! Thanks, Gregg!

As chance would have it, this same week, Chris O’Brien, who is a beekeeper, and also a “beer activist” in addition to his impressive role as our campus sustainability coordinator, captured a small swarm outside of his house. Chris offered to donate the swarm to our efforts on campus. Lindsay and I installed the hive today. Thanks, Chris!

The Goodwill hive has very few bees (like, 50) and the box we’re keeping them in is small (it only fits 3 frames, with the feeder inside of it), at least for the time being. It is a grand experiment, but given good conditions, we hope the new queen and her posse will have a good go of it in their new home. So far, they’re off to an auspicious beeginning.

Keep positive thoughts buzzing in the direction of these new babees. We are! 🙂