Visiting the Hives

 

This week, PhD students Kayla Miller and Freddy Lee went out to check on the hives and see how our bees fared over the winter. We were happy to see that one of our hives survived and was buzzing with activity (pun intended). Because only one hive survived, next month we'll split our remaining hive so that we can have two colonies for the next season. Until then, we fed the surviving hive with some sugar water - the mason jar attached to the yellow hive box -- and some pollen patties. While the foragers are coming back with full pollen baskets, it's still pretty early in the season for large amounts of flowers, so the food we give them will help supplement their diet for now.

Our hives are located at one of IU's Research and Teaching Preserves at Bayles Road. As you can see below, it's still pretty brown, but soon the fields will be full of flowering research projects. At this site there is a large research project looking at Asters, so our bees are conveniently located right next to a buffet!