Dan Pederson, co-owner of Farm House Honey LLC, pried the top off of the beehive, which was installed on the MCCC Community Farm in late April.
The beehive, located in a small clearing in the woods behind the farm plots, was surrounded by honeybees illuminated by the morning sun. It is composed of several wooden boxes stacked on top of each other, all of which are on cement bricks to reduce rodents and insects entering the hive and to prevent the wood from rotting. The bees’ entrance is a small hole in the side of the lowest box.
In the top box, there were a few dead bees which had been crushed by the lid. Pederson explained that putting the lid on while so many are swarming on it, leads to a few of the 50,000 to 60,000 bees getting crushed…