Victory on Bee-Day

It finally happened today.

This time last year, I became interested in beekeeping. Early last summer, I bought my first gear. Last fall, I got to apprentice with a real actual beekeeper after he took a spill from a ladder and had a cast on one arm. Each step took me deeper into the hobby, and none of them turned me off. Except maybe when Dan told me (as I was lifting the lid off the last hive of his that I helped with) this particular hive was "a little more aggressive" than I was used to. But I knew being stung here and there was part of the deal. I found out for sure that day that I definitely am not allergic, which ought to be the first requirement of beekeeping. This winter I ordered stuff and more stuff and assembled it all into hive parts. In January, I ordered two packages of three pounds of bees each. That's roughly 20,000 bees. Thursday I alerted the postmaster that this parcel was coming for me.

This morning he called. He'd appreciate it if I could run down and pick up the bees. Now. So I picked them up. They seemed to weigh more than six pounds of bees should weigh. At first sight, I could tell there were less dead ones in the bottom than the shipper warned is normal. I took it as a good omen. Three or four little Houdini bees had escaped, but clung to the outside of the screen. On the way home, these would fly around the car a bit, but land only on the cage where she started. Because it was still chilly and overcast, I left them in the car until the sun came out. Then the girls took respite from the sun on the back porch. A few times during the day, I fed them some syrup. They quit buzzing and enjoyed eating for a good while each time.

Finally the appointed hour came. I put on safety gear and prepared my tools. Fed both boxes of bees some more syrup. (Now was the time to get them on my side, for sure.)

Each package of bees was shipped with its own queen. Because this is a forced family arrangement among the queen and her colony, things have to be handled carefully from the start. The queen is shipped in a very small cage with a few attendants inside the box. This is to prevent the colony, which doesn't yet know her well, from killing her. The queen's penthouse cage is shipped with basically two plugs: one made of cork, the other made of candy. I removed the cork plug, and the idea is that by the time the colony eats through the candy plug, the queen and her subjects will have bonded intimately. The urge to kill the queen will be gone by then. That's the hope and prayer.

So the queen's luxury suite is installed hanging between two frames, for the time being (see photo). Then the rest of the package of bees is delicately and carefully coaxed, dumped and shaken into their new home. Frames that were removed to allow dumping space are replaced carefully. The hive is closed up. The remaining hangers on in the shipping cage are placed on top of the hive so hopefully they get the idea where their friends went, and want to go there.

Now I wait. Opening the hive before a week has passed can disrupt the ladies' bonding process and cause them to reject the queen. So next week, I'll open the hive and see how wonderfully the bees are moving in.

Tomorrow's mission is to bring home the nuc hive I have ordered from a beekeeper at Hendersonville.

Kudos to my 6-year-old nephew. Ian was the only person The Gentleman Farmer knew who was not busy when I needed help to install the bees in their new digs. (Or was he the only brave one?) Ian took most of the photos of the bees' moving in ceremony and helped put the hives back together once the bees were in place. Thank you, Bubba.