Beekeeper!
Yep, you read that right!
As a community, we decided a while ago to purchase a hive so that we can begin to harvest our own honey. I’ve been busy reading bee books and looking up bee keepers’ associations and generally learning about bees.
Yesterday, we got news that the bees would be here Wednesday or Thursday. Today, we hurried along and set up the hive, doing some last-minute research.
And then we got a call that the bees were here and they suggested picking them up tonight.
So Crystle and I took off to Better Bee Supplies in Cambridge to pick up some supplies and our “nuc” - beekeeping language for a nucleus of bees, which contains 3 lbs of bees (around 10 000 bees).
We drove them home (in the trunk - Gil was in the back!) and once here decided to hive them right away instead of waiting until morning. Graham and I suited up an armed with our hive tool and a spray bottle of sugar-water headed to the hive with a cardboard box full of 10 000 bees.
It was more than a little nerve-wracking!
Graham was great - he placed the full frames into the hive like a pro - he used to have bees as a kid - with only work gloves. He was stung only once - the sugar-water was very effective at calming the bees!
So - success! Our colony can now grow and begin to produce honey! I’ll check on the hive in a week (hopefully with a bee-keeping friend!) and make sure the queen is laying eggs and that the foragers are bringing in honey.
Exciting! And a little bit terrifying!
