The bees are coming tomorrow!

The dandelions and most of the trees are in full bloom here already, but it’s good to give the bees some low hanging fruit to eat, at least until they get settled in and draw out all their comb.

What I’m affectionately calling bee syrup is just white sugar and water, mixed together at a 1:1 ratio. To facilitate mixing, I’m boiling the water first.

And pouring it into a big old jar. This jar used to hold 4 lbs. of olives and is just the right size to hold 10 cups of water…

Mixed with 10 cups of sugar.

The solution that I got has a wonderful viscosity to it – check out those ripples that form in the wake of the spoon!

My bee syrup is made, and now I’m just waiting for it to cool. Tomorrow I’ll use a hammer and a small nail to poke a few holes in the lid. This way, we can turn the jar upside down and rest it on top of the frames in the hive. A vacuum seal formed by turning the jar over should keep the syrup from all leaking out of the holes at once – instead the bees will be able to draw it out through the holes when they need it. We’ll surround it with an empty deep hive body and put the lid on top to prevent robbing from other bees. Basically our hive tomorrow will have two boxes – one for bees and one for food.

I’m not putting any holes in the lid until I get this thing transported to the garden, though. Covered in syrup is no way to start a hive installation.