EAST AURORA, N.Y. — Did you know that you can order bees to help with your garden or produce honey?
Daybreak's Kevin O'Neill introduced us to a local nursery that recently received millions of honey bees that will soon go to homes in WNY.
Only the owners were buzzing that early in the morning, because it was a little too early and too cold for their new shipment of bees to be active.
Masterson's Garden Center in East Aurora received a shipment of 4.3 million honey bees Thursday morning. Manager Erin Masterson explains that beekeeping has become a significant part of the garden center's business.
Customers can buy a wooden box containing a colony of about 15,000 bees. Honey bees are (normally) tranquil by nature and are not aggressive towards humans. It is the sinister look-alike yellow jackets, members of the wasp family, that are more likely to sting you.
Honey bees are typically foraging for pollen to bring back to the hive, and will leave you alone as long as you leave them alone.
Erin will spend the week carefully opening all of the bee crates to make sure each colony has a queen bee. The queen will be larger than the other 14,999 or so other bees. The queens lays eggs to repopulate the hive, as honeybees only live about 6 weeks.
For more information, go to www.mastersons.net.
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