This trip involved putting fresh pollen patties into the hives, refilling the sugar water bottles, and refilling a water bucket. We visited two sites on the trip. Still amazed at how docile the bees are even though we’re opening-up their homes.

Some establishing shots.

Opening up a hive.

Putting a refilled bottle of sugar water onto the hive.

The tool of the trade. Pretty all that needs to be done with a hive in the field can be done with a hook-end hive tool.

A bucket of pollen patties. Okie makes these himself.

Corks are put in the water bucket so bees can drink without drowning.

One set of hives occasionally shares space with cows. We’ll get back to this in a later post.

Bees using propolis to seal a gap in the hive. (Okie will repair it later in the season.)

View of the beautiful crescent of hives that share space with the cows. Again, we’ll touch on this in a later post.