The Residence has Residents!

Remember this post?  The beehive we built and I painted last June?  Well, it turned out to be too late in the season to get a strong bee colony going, so we had to wait until now... and this past Monday night... we got our bees!

We got a nuc, which consists of five frames of honeybees with drawn out honeycomb filled with various stages of brood and a laying queen.  In essence, the NUCleus of a hive!

Per instructions received from experienced beekeepers, we opened the door of the nuc and put it on the actual hive overnight.

And then Tuesday morning, we installed the bees into the hive!

Now we have the incredibly difficult task of leaving the hive alone until Sunday, when we can check on the bees and see how they're doing in there.  More photos will come!