CRANE MEADOWS

In the water meter box right near the road, we found a bee hive.

To get the water turned on, the bees had to be moved first. So Cameron built a "top bar" style bee hive to move them into.

Completed Hive Left with roof on, right without the roof on.

Holes in front for bees to get in and out. Observation window in back.

Then on to building a "bee vacuum". A bee vac is a screen box within a suction box with a vacuum attached to one end and another vacumm hose coming out the other end to suck the bees into the inner screened box. It's important to keep the vacuum pressure low enough to not hurt the bees..

We got our bee suits before the big move. On Saturday evening, July 9th Cameron and Therese moved the bees into their new home.

We cut out as much of the honey comb as possible and attached it to the top bars in the new hive.

Fire up the smoker and get the suit on....

This shot is after we cut off the comb. Cameron came back Sunday to vacuum up the stragglers.

There were still a LOT of bees in the old hive Sunday morning.

Bees in the bee vacuum inner cage. These two pictures are what was vacuumed up on Sunday morning.

Bees in their new home.... These were taken before we got all the hive moved. This is about half the bees that we sucked up Saturday. Cameron went back Sunday morning and sucked up the rest of the bees and moved them in with their queen.

Friday afer we closed, we checked on the bees- no bee suits!

Bees coming and going and didn't seem to care about us walking around the back side and watching them through the window for a while.

July 17th Update: All the Bees in and they have made a lot more comb- you can really tell on the small comb that is 2nd from the left.

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Cameron & Therese