Day 17: Kingston and Bees

Taylor left today from the Kingston airport. Kylie and I went along for the drive to say goodbye. We will all miss Taylor very much. She contributed to much of the great vibe here and guided me when I first came. It was hard to say goodbye but we all wish the best for her in her future endeavors.
Here is a great picture of all of us. Left to right: Kwao, Enoch, Emmanuel, Me, Joshua, Melchezidek, Taylor, Kylie, Christie, Cody, and Agape. 

 Me, Taylor, and Kylie at the airport:

 Interesting billboard outside the airport:

 We went a visited Richie, a friend of the family. He is dry docked in Port Royal working on his boat. Here is a picture of a private boat that was abandoned after being damaged in the hurricane, you can see the severe damage in the front:

 Place we went to was called "Y Knot":

 There was an old building there going to ruin that was built in 1890 so it was probably built by the British. There are a lot of old buildings that I see in towns or cities, but most have gone to ruin. Kwao said only a few are ever saved. I wish more of them were, they are like a piece of history.

 While Richie took us to eat, Kwao somehow found the only guy that knew where bees were in the area. This wild bee colony was in an electrical box. You can see the guard bees hanging out at the bottom.

 After we got back, I went into the bees to take pictures for Christie and Cody. Here is a nice comb with a strip of honey at the top (the bar is flipped over, so the honey is at the bottom of the picture):

 The side apiary:

Here are the queen cells that we found in the Langstroth hive. There were five in total so we had to kill four of them to prevent swarming. I got to try royal jelly for the first time! It was not very tasty...

 We also tested that hive for mites by using a jar of bees with powdered sugar:

 We then poured out the powdered sugar through mesh onto a white tray and let the bees back:

We found one mite for a infestation (for the 300 bees we tested) of 1%. No natural treatment/intervention needed.