Carpenter and His Bees

06/08/2026

The flow of the bees. 🐝❤️

Enjoy them moving into their new home ☺️🏠

06/07/2026

🏡 Surprise Swarm Move-In! 🐝

We got an unexpected visitor when a swarm showed up and moved into the empty boxes in our garage! The bees spent some time checking out different boxes before finally deciding on their new home. Once they settled in, we were able to spot the queen and make sure everyone was where they belonged.

Sometimes the bees do all the work for you! 🍯🐝

06/05/2026

We love it when swarms come to us!

A bee swarm came in as Diane and I (Jess) were in the backyard doing a drip line. We caught them flying over our heads and over the house. They ended up moving into a box inside our garage, which we will move out tonight! Who doesn’t like free bees?!

06/01/2026

I think she likes our new sunflowers ☺️

05/29/2026

Ever wonder why a queen bee suddenly freezes up and looks “stunned” when she’s being handled? 👑🐝
Queens are extremely sensitive to stress, temperature changes, vibrations, and even light. When picked up or moved around, they can go still for a moment as a natural response to being overwhelmed. It’s not always a sign that she’s injured — many queens will pause, lock up, or move slowly before recovering and getting back to work once they calm down and return to the hive.

That’s why gentle handling is so important during inspections, cutouts, and queen catches. One tiny queen controls the future of the whole colony. 🐝

05/27/2026

Did the trap our work?!?
Kelvin digs deep into this hive during today’s hive check to see what’s really going on inside the trap out colony. We were hoping to find a queen…

Kelvin digs deep into this hive during today’s hive check to see what’s really going on inside the trap out colony. We were hoping to find a queen… but no qu...

05/25/2026

In early medieval Ireland, bees were so valuable that there were actual laws written just for them.

Known as the Bechbretha, or “bee judgments,” these laws date back to around the 7th and 8th centuries and covered everything from stolen hives to bee attacks and even “nectar theft” by neighboring swarms.

If someone claimed your bees were stealing flowers from their land, the law suggested dusting the bees with flour and following the white trail back to their hive.

Bees were legally treated like livestock because honey, wax, and mead were essential to daily life in medieval Ireland. In some cases, compensation for injuries or disputes was literally paid in beehives.

What makes it even more fascinating is that Irish records from over 1,000 years ago mention mass bee die-offs linked to famine and human suffering, showing people already understood how important pollinators were long before modern science confirmed it.

📸: Douai Cuincy Library Network.
📸: National Museum of Antiquities

05/23/2026

These bees could not stay!! 🐝

We had to trap them out of their hive they built in the tree because it was not safe for them to be there. We moved them back to our apiary where they can be monitored and protected.

05/22/2026

They liked the tree a little too much 😂🐝

Shaking bees off the tree from a swarm, they still smell their queen on the tree so they went back pretty quickly.