Beekeeper Scarecrow in the AB Garden

Every year the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Club has an entry into the annual Scarecrows in the Garden contest at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. This year Julia has volunteered to make the scarecrow. She and Karen, another beekeeper, worked hard to put together this scarecrow.

Karen is a structural engineer, so you can imagine that this scarecrow has a backbone!  The plan is to have bees coming out of the hive entry on wire, so Karen has also constructed a board with holes drilled for the wire to back the entry for the wires to be stabilized.

The scarecrow is due on Thursday and I'll add pictures as it gets closer to completion. The eyes are orange crush bottle caps (a subtle reference to our crush and strain method of honey harvest!)

Do the bees recognize the beekeeper?

Well, I'd like to think I'm developing a relationship with my bees. I go out and stand or sit between the hives and watch them come and go. But I never approach the hives from the front so that I don't interrupt their flight paths. So far since I installed the hives on April 16, I haven't been stung.

There's a thread going on the beemaster.com forum about this topic, and I was disappointed to read that it's highly likely that the only reason the bees aren't bothering me is that I am not bothering them - not that they are recognizing me. Here's the thread
if you'd like to read it:


Since bees turn over about every 40 days in the hive, the queen is the only bee in the hive who lives sometimes 3 or 4 years. Gives new meaning to the phrase: "Long live the queen!"