May 1st had a great ending. Alex and Maryn brought two bee hives with their colonies. I have had my bee journeyman certification for a few years, and even purchased a hive two spring seasons back, which Alex and Maryn have cared for. They are now up to 19 hives by splitting colonies, retrieving swarms, and removing colonies from homes not welcoming the bees in their eves. They wanted to spread their hives to different locations, so two hives came to our berry patch next to the Aquaponics building. Site location was pondered, due to the many working ant colonies, with their connecting trails. The local bee club has devised a prevention method, to keep the ants from invading the hives. Up side down metal cans were placed on top of the posts, and filled with axil grease should break the trail up to the hives. These cans can bee seen in the photos below. The colorful boxes are the active hives and the middle box is an interpreted design by Alex and Ben from a video on how to build an insulated bee box for frigid weather in the Ukraine. There is a photo showing the new frames in the new bee box. Varroa mites have become an increasing problem for the bees, the photos show Alex and Maryn doing a quick fumigation against the mites with no harm to the bees or honey. I feel bees are an extremely important part of sustainability, thus connecting to aquaponics.
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