1500 K Street July Hive Update
Notes from your Beekeeper,
James:
The honeybees on the rooftop of 1500 K Street continued to expand their colony in July, filling out the second box that was added earlier in the summer. Now, your colony has over 20 frames full with honey, pollen, brood and somewhere between 40,000 to 50,000 bees! Together with native pollinators, the honeybees have been pollinating all of the flowering vegetable plants in the adjacent garden like cucumbers, eggplant, peppers and tomatoes. Their tireless work has meant there are full bags of produce and happy tenants at your weekly Harvest Tables!
This month, the bees have stored an impressive amount of honey due to an unusual late summer nectar flow. Because of the almost daily rain we received in July, there were more flowering plants and trees in the region, which should mean a strong honey harvest when that time comes!
Wondering how the honey bees
find flowering plants?
Bees can communicate with each other through a unique "waggle dance". When a forager bee finds a good source of nectar or pollen, it returns to the hive and performs a series of figure-eight movements. The angle and duration of the dance tell other bees the direction and distance to the food source—essentially giving GPS directions by dancing!
