We are getting ready to close on our first season of the Argonaut Apiary! The bees are thriving in their new home due to the ongoing care of Noelle and Kelly of Koelle Tiny Farms!

They’ve named our queen bees follows:

Colors/Colony Name/Queen

Tangerine & Pink/April Fools/Celine Dion

Blue & Lavender/Gemini/Xtina

Green & Lavender/Happy Tuesday/Queen Karen 

A lot of people have been asking about honey. The first year for a new beehive is all focused on helping the bees live their best life to survive the widely variable temps in a Colorado winter. This means making sure they have enough of their hard-earned honey to live on while they are stuck in the hive unable to fly due to cold or forage due to lack of flowering plants. We're hopeful in years to come these hives can become well-established and productive hives, able to share their bounty with Denver!

Some fun facts about bees:

- 98-99% percent of every colony is female - they do every job in the hive from nursing the eggs and larvae, cleaning cells and preparing them for their next need, guarding the hive from invaders like wasps, removing dead bees from the hive as undertakers, and their last role - forager - out gathering the pollen and nectar.

- An average worker bee makes only 1/12 a TEASPOON of honey in her lifetime! That's about a drop. Liquid gold!

- Honeybees excrete wax from their abdomens to create perfect hexagonal cells - the strongest shape requiring the least amount of resources.

- A queen bee will only leave the hive once in her lifetime to mate, can live up to 5 years, and can lay 1000 eggs per day.

- A colony is ruled by the workers - not the queen - and it is the workers that guide the queen to meet the needs of the hive

In these pics, in addition to seeing the enviable view these hives enjoy, you also see Kelly inspecting Gemini, Noelle and Kelly each with a frame of capped honey that looks like a smooth snow white, Queen Xtina - the longer bodied, bald backed bee in the middle of the workers, and a frame of golden brown brood - baby bees pupating in a covered cell.