Weekending

We got a call on Friday night, just after we got the kids to sleep, made drinks, and sat down to watch Community... Our friend was on his way from a beer tasting (oh dear) to the post office. To pick up our bees. 

 

We all ran around in an adrenaline fueled craze, trying to get things ready before they got here, and of course forgetting everything important. Like the fact that your first foray into beekeeping should probably not happen while 100% of you are slightly buzzed. It's so weird how when you have your arm, up to your elbow, in a box full of bees, you sort of forget all the instructional youtube videos you watched on how to get the queen cage out.

Especially if the guy holding the flashlight in your pitch dark yard does a lovely grand jet´e every time anything buzzes next to him. I'm not going to name names or anything. But yeah. 

We got them installed in the hive and my heart rate took another hour and a half to normalize. After some pretty crazy agitated buzzing the first morning, today they seem to have settled down and started foraging. They found the water and the we rigged up a little mason jar feeder to help them out while they're getting established. 

So far we've had no stings, and other than a fight over what to name our new Queen Bee (Jane says Lily, Wren says Nancy Drew and Chase says Susan Bee Combin'), the kids have been interested but not really TOO interested. There's a gate to that part of the yard, and the bees haven't been coming into the rest of our yard so far. Sadly, but luckily in this case, I am pretty terribly bad at flower gardening. So there's not much to draw them here. 

Bonus silly face Wren

Sweet Wren. That's about as much of her face as I usually see these days. Either over the top of Nancy Drew or behind the wii controller. 

Here are the ladies, all moved in. That wire box is the shipping container, and we moved it after the stragglers finally made it into the hive last night. Tomorrow I get the smoker and open it back up to check on them and make sure Lily/Susan/Nancy's out of her candy-plug cage. Wish me luck! And Benedryl!