After class and lunch, Mark went out to the Coyote yard and released the queen he had installed in a slightly aggressive hive. I believe that was a hive that he had caught as a swarm and he had doubts as to whether or not they’d stick around at all. They have but then they started behaving in a manner he didn’t like so he decided it was time to put a marked Olivarez queen in there to calm them down. I had intended to go with him to two yards today but we thought it best for me to not go to Coyote and take any chances so I stayed home and worked on pictures and so on.
I did get to go to Deadman Creek and these are some of the pictures I took with Mark’s iPhone, which I think takes pretty nice shots for a mobile device, smart or not. Can you believe I lugged my Nikon out there only to realize I had forgotten to reinsert my memory card?? It sat nice and safe in my laptop. At home. Oh well. Sometimes I think as I wander the yards, what pictures should I take that are different from other pictures I’ve already taken of this bee yard and of bees in general. So I got creative today after I snapped a few to show you how well the bees are doing. It’s amazing how some rain really boosts the bees. They were carrying pollen in like crazy! And it was a lovely bright yellow, which is what you see in some of the cells on the frame in the top shot. Below is a shot of one of the queen cages Mark checked on today. He said they have pretty much almost finished eating through the cork to get the queen out. Great sign and he was satisfied. Today he put in the candy cork, which they will take about a week to eat through. He likes to call this the Very Slow Method of Queen Introduction. Seriously!
Finally, here’s a fun shot we both really enjoyed. I set the iPhone on top of the hive box because I was found watching the bees from the angle so interesting. I thought I’d try out the angle as a shot and I ended up liking it so much, I shot two short videos in addition to this photo. I will try and get the videos off Mark’s phone and onto YouTube before the work week starts up for me. Between updating the phone, Time Warner’s sporadic performance and our schedule…we’ll see how it goes. But I’ll work on it! 🙂
Gretchen Bee Ranch 
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