The buzz.......

Our bees arrived yesterday.

My cousin had built the hive bodies for us and did a great job. Elijah worked on putting together frames last week and installing foundations for them. Josiah and I went to town yesterday to meet the truck and pick up our humming packages. Each little screened cage is weighed at 3 pounds of bees ---- doesn't seem like too many does it? However a three pound package of bees is estimated to hold over 10,000 little critters.

I must confess here that I have always had an aversion to bees. I got stung by a fat bumble bee right in the inside corner of my eye when I was about four years old while I was playing outside. It was definitely a freak type of accident but I have never really had an affinity for the little boogers since then. As we were standing at the back of this flat bed trailer yesterday with bees flying loose from the packages (there are always stragglers I was told) I was most definitely having second thoughts. We only live about 13 miles from the meeting location but the idea of driving with 20,000 bees in my back seat did unnerve me I must say. I asked Josiah is he was ABSOLUTELY SURE he wanted to do this - we could probably get out of it. Josiah was excited and gave me a cheerful "we've come this far".

Okay, Andrea, deep breath........

I was pleasantly surprised that the little ladies (the entire package is female isn't that interesting?) were very amiable. They were not buzzing all over the car even though there was easily 30 bees on the outside of the screened boxes. They were very content to remain close together and my car hummed along in a very soothing fashion actually.

When we arrived home all the kidlets wanted to see the buzzing packages. Josiah and I did some final last minute type preparations on the hive bodies, geared up (veils and gloves), and started handling the bees. We had to extract the feeding apparatus used for traveling the bees from CA (close to Sacramento actually) to Montana. Then you remove the queen's cage (another little screened box about the size of a package of gum). She was VERY anxious to be free from her little box. We removed the cork at the end of her cage, replacing it with a marshmallow and hung her cage among the frames. She is quite large; again very interesting to observe.

Then comes the tricky part - we had sprayed the ladies with sugar syrup to keep them from flying at us while we took their queen out of the box. We sprayed them again to keep them busy and happy and then we started shaking the bees out of the box and into their new hive dumping half of them directly on top of the queen and then the rest into the hive body. Then we have to gently push the bees into smaller, thinner layers and place the rest of the frames and close it up. In the next five days the bees will work to build comb in the hive and start the regular business of collecting pollen. We gave them a feeder of sugar syrup to help get them started. Spring is in its earliest stages here in Helena -- there isn't much blooming yet. The little ladies will fly 3 miles (as a crow flies) in search of food. Tim said that it is a radius of 27 square miles - how phenomenal is that???

Next week Josiah and I open the hive back up to make sure the colony has accepted the queen and production is in full swing.

Josiah handled himself FABULOUSLY!!! Nothing worried or frightened him. He tended the bees gently. His comment was that he is "already beginning to like these little creatures" I actually enjoyed them immensely myself. I got stung once yesterday; I was shaking the bees out of their cage and one flew between my fingers that I didn't see. As I shook the cage down again she was squished and let me know I had offended her greatly. Even that wasn't bad though. One of the experienced beekeepers in the area said that beekeepers don't have arthritis - the bee venom from an occasional sting keeps the joints from getting arthritis. When I was visiting with our friends last night my girlfriend (who is an RN) said that she has read studies where patients suffering from MS purposely get stung by their bees to slow the effects of the disease. The kids and I were discussing how God created these little creatures in such an intricate and marvelous way. We serve such an amazing and creative God.

So now the adventure begins...... I need to get check my bees. There really is something so enjoyable listening to their hum :)