Six weeks after finding a swarm of honeybees up in the branches of an orange tree, capturing the swarm and making them at home in one of our empty hives, this newly established swarm is thriving. Aren’t they happy looking bees! It’s great to see them returning to the hive, legs plump with pollen.

Since we rescued this live late in the season (end of August), we were concerned they wouldn’t have enough nectar or pollen to build up a well-stocked hive before winter set in. So we regularly feed the bees a 1/1 sugar syrup, sometimes adding Honey B Healthy for extra fortification. The bees have built up lots of fresh comb and filled it with honey, which we’ll let them keep to live on over the winter. They do still seem to be pulling in a lot of flower supplies, but whether it’s that or the syrup supplementation, this hive is thriving. Last time we inspected the hive, we found the frames building out nicely with comb and filled with uncapped honey and brood too.

Here is the entrance to the hive, showing the bees going in and out at a great pace, laden with pollen on their legs when they return. We gave them some beeswax scraped from the queen divider on the absconded hive to use to renew and build out more of their own comb.