This project is for the AP Environmental Students at New Kent High School. This project made possible by funding provided by the Toshiba America Foundation. The project is multi-disciplinary. The Material Construction Classes are builiding the observation hives. The Business Department is writing a business plan, and the AP Science classes are building and maintaining the brood and super hives.
We are in the first year of this multi-year project and have just finished building the hives. We have two complete hives built. These hives will be placed in two different locations to obtain different sources for the honey. Our bees are expected to arrive on April 4th.
We have had the state apiarist Ketih Tigner visit our classroom twice to offer support and advice for our students.
Im looking forward to when the bees arrive to apply what we have learned. I find it interesting how bee hive heirarchy works and can't wait to observe it when the bees arrive.
ReplyDeleteHaving the state bee guy come was very informative and helped us be ready for our coming project
ReplyDeleteIts April 6th and the bees are in! Thirty minutes after we set up the Queen and the rest of the hive I went back to check on the bees. Around an hour later (2:50) I took the top feeder off and the hive was all right there working on getting the Queen free! And in addition, in that little time all the bees were off the ramp and into the brude box. I believe this hive has a great future based on this excellent start!
ReplyDeleteWe've got bees! The queen has been released and the bees are pulling out the comb very quickly! Possibly another box before summer?!
ReplyDeleteBees were put at Atlantic Growers on April 6, 2011. WE could see the queen bee amongst the many thousands of bees. She had a large white dot. Amanda and Abbie and Emily put on suits and settled the nuk (gueen) between two frames. We put on a top feeder with a 1:1 sugar solution inside.
ReplyDeleteThe bees are doing really good! That next brood box will fill up quick. They should be making a bunch of honey in no time.
ReplyDeleteI am stoked to continue to work with the bees and watch them grow and produce honey. I think that working with bees will prepare me for bee encounters in the near future so that maybe they will not attack me if i ever run into a large gang of bees and maybe when i grow up, i will have my own bee farm. I am looking forward to going to observe the bees on a regular basis to see how they have evolved in their hive.
ReplyDeleteBees are awesome! weve had a lot of fun dealing with the bees! There is one at my house and i can always see the bees!
ReplyDeleteThe bees seem to be doing well, which makes me too stoked to continue with the project we're working on. I have a new appreciate for bees, except for when they decide that they want to get stuck in my hair. :(
ReplyDeleteEnvironmental Science FTW!
We checked the bees last Friday. They were producing sufficient comb along with larva. Seeing this , we decided to add another brood box to allow for the natural expansion of the hive. Hopefully the second box will begin to fill up very soon. Also on Friday we forgot to sufficiently "smoke" the bees so they became quite aggressive. A couple people received stings. I was one of the first group to suit up. We did not find the queen at first, but after a couple minutes of searching she was spotted.
ReplyDeletegreat field exercise! The bees are doing great! This will surely be one of the highlights of my senior year!
ReplyDeleteThe bees look like they are doing great. most of the frames have honey comb cells pulled out already and are quickly filling up with honey and pollen. We already put the second brood box on, so hopefully they will be producing lots of honey by the end of this summer. This project is a lot of fun and very interesting and has encouraged me to take up beekeeping later in life.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't able to visit the bees this past Thursday, but from what I'm hearing from my classmates, the bees are doing well! Hopefully, since we attached a second brood box to the give, more larvae will be showing up. Honey production us sounding pretty promising, and hopefully us students will be able to come back to the give over the summer and enjoy the bees' service of honey-making! I'm excited to see the hive's progress over the next few weeks as school comes to a close.
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