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haha, wow, that's fun.  I'll be looking forward to some homemade honey!

Neat.  Cole would like to see that.

wait, so are you keeping them? or you gave them to the beekeeper?

I think he kept them, Jay.  He said "back in bee business".  Bee hives are pretty valuable these days.

that is so fun!  I want a beehive.

I put it on the side west side of our house right under our bathroom window.  So Dawn and I have opened our window and watch them through the screen.  They are about 4 feet away from the screen.  I have given them 2 margin tub lids with honey in the ring, so they don't get mired down while they eat it.  This helps them "establish" the hive as a good home, and also reduces starvation while they get oriented and find nectar and pollen.  It is cool to watch them eat the honey.  Dawn said she just saw the queen come out briefly and eat some of the honey.  That is very rare for the queen to leave the hive, but she is very noticeable with her rear end being more than twice as long as the average worker bee.

...feeding time for the tiny flying oinkers!

wow thats cool.

Never forget when it got so cold in OR one winter we brought the dormant hive into the basement where it was warmer and blew our warm breath on the queen to revive her. 

That is really fun...how hard is it to keep them around and alive?  Would it work in portland?  

Once a hive is established they are pretty much self sustaining.  Unlike cats, dogs, pigs, chickens, cattle, gardens, houses, or children, you really don't have to do anything for them or to them.  It is recommended to make their hive smaller in the winter, and larger in the summer ( adding to or subtracting "supers" from the hive) so they can store more honey.  After the I shot the video above, I added one super.  They pretty much don't go out in the rain, or below 50 degrees.  So here in So Cal, they can work proly 320+ days a year.   Be aware that some cities have ordinances against having them, or limits about where they can be placed within city limits.

Holly a guy in my church has a couple hives in his back yard and lives near us in Beaverton. 

I hate bees :-) Totally irrational, but no way could I ever have bees at my house. Glad you're enjoying them, though!

u r not alone in your fear of bees.  I know a lot of people are afraid of them.  Unfortunately, "domestic" honey bees are lumped together with other more aggressive bees, like wasps, hornets and the notorious africanized (killer) bees.  Fortunately, the aggressiveness of africanized honey bees has lessened as they have interbred with less aggressive hive strains, and as they continue to migrate north from Brazil, where they were accidentally released.  In the "domestic" honey bee's defense, I have only observed them to be aggressive when you are messing with their hive.  The other problem is that they are not precision flyers.  When you watch them, you see that their flight pattern is very erratic, and this leads to numerous collisions with obstacles, and people.  So that is why we often see some poor person shreiking, running head down, arms flailing, as they run from a perceived bee ambush.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100324/ap_on_sc/us_food_and_farm_disappearing_bees

more bad news....

maybe ur hive will be worth millions some day.

VEry interesting.  we love the bees as we have trees that can use their services. Noticed a lot of hives in the orchards as we were driving in Calif. on our trip.  Some places they even pay the bee keepers to bring the hives for the pollination.