Arrival of the Bees

Well, it finally happened. The bees arrived. I’ve learned many things in the last twenty four hours; most important is that my son is not the best person to bring along when picking up bees. That is, unless you want someone with you who is constantly nervous. Let me explain. We went to Southbury to pick up our fabulous packages of bees at Hannan Honey. The trailer full of packages was there as well as five other cars in the narrow driveway. I was last in line and, true to my worrying nature, worried about how everyone in front of me wanted to leave. They were all pretty cool, though. Except for that one guy who was complaining about his packages, but we didn’t let that get to us. We were given our packages right away and even had them loaded into the car. Unfortunately, there were some loose bees crawling around the outside of the boxes. Kirk spent the whole ride home giving me a play-by-play as to where the loose ones were.

But we finally made it home in one piece. We got all our supplies together, suited up in our spiffy bee suits, and headed to the hives. Dave had done a tremendous job making the stands and sinking them into the ground so the bees would be on stable ground. I must say here that looking at a box of bees doesn’t give you the same thrill as opening said box and dumping three thousand of the little bugs onto the hive. And they all fly around you. And poop on you. I can’t say enough about the pooping. There was a lot of it. We got both hives safely installed, made sure they both had pollen patties and syrup, and headed in. That’s when I noticed a bee had crawled up my pants. FYI – no matter how gingerly you try to take off straight leg jeans, you are bound to get stung if there is a bee above your knee. I did and it hurt, but it ended up not being nearly as bad as the stings described in Robbing the Bees.

We lost some overnight – it was rainy and cold, but not many. This morning the hive you see us working on in the picture had bees at the entrance and was emitting a loud hum. The other hive wasn’t as loud and had no bees at the entrance. I don’t know what this means. Dave thought it may mean the quiet hive doesn’t like rain – it is wet and cold this morning. As of yesterday both queens were alive. I’m going to give them a week or so to settle down before opening the hive to check on them again. Next time, I’m taping my pants legs so they can’t crawl in.

In garden news: I’ve removed all the grass and planted a green manure crop of vetch, oats, and peas. I mixed them with inoculants and hope they have enough time to grow a bit before Memorial Day planting. I only found one earthworm. Even after my mustard water experiment (2 TBSP mustard powder mixed with 2 liters water poured into a 12” x 12” hole to get the worms to come up). Still waiting to hear from the state re: the soil test. Dave has embraced the compost heap and has been throwing stuff on it.