Previously we set up the greenhouse (Site1a2g) as an enclosed space with supplemental/augmenting resources (pollen, sugar water, "mud"). Then we released the bees, actually placed the cocoons, on Wednesday morning, the 19th of February. On Thursday, we did our first check of the bees progress. On Friday the 21st we checked the status of the bees, cocoon, and our enclosed space.
On Saturday the 22nd, it rained all day. There was little or no bee activity. We counted one bee emerged.
We did install a better watering system thanks to Dr Cahit Ozturk of the ASU Honey Bee Research Lab. Previously we reported that several bees had drowned in our plain water and sugar water provisions. To prevent this Dr Ozturk provided us with the watering system shown below that prevents any possibility of drowning.
Dr Ozturk is now advising the BlueOrchardBeesInArizonaProject and we greatly value his expertise and practical experience in bees. He teaches a course on 'Introduction to Bee Keeping' at ASU.
We met Cahit at the Arizona Honey Bee Festival in November 2019. You can see some comments from him here:
Next, the wind and rain blow out one of the panels of our greenhouse. Michelle to the rescue!
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