The Bees Have Landed!

So today was the day! We drove straight from work to Bedillion Honey Farm and got our bees. After picking up three pounds of bees and a interesting twenty minute car ride home (we had 3 tagalongs and one of them decided to go on an adventure around the car), we got ready to put the bees in their new home. I know what you are thinking, and yes, bees are usually sold by the pound. 3 lbs of bees is somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 bees, all depending on how many were flying at the time... sorry I stole that one off another page. And in case you were wondering, they use a big funnel and just knock the bees off of the comb of the original hive into the box that they sell them in.

12,000 - 15,000 Bees waiting for a new home

We had the hive all set up and ready to go, I had completed my last minute building projects, and had received all the equipment we needed in time (including Sarah's last minute order for her veil).  We got all our gear and moved down to the back yard to put the bees into their hive.  We we put some lemongrass oil in the hive, put in the feeder, got the package open (with only a little difficulty getting the can out), got the queen cage out and that was when I got stung for the first time in this process. I didn't tie my sleeves down and so one bee managed to slip up my sleeve, and sting me on my forearm. We took some pics of the queen before getting her cage situated in the hive.  Now came the interesting part getting the rest of the bees into the hive, a couple of bumps to the cage and a-pouring we did go. Since it was cool out, we did not spray the bees down with sugar water to preoccupy them and just had to wing it.  I got most of the colony dumped into hive with little incident, but as we were stepping back I got my second sting and Sarah got her first. My second was on the wrist of the same hand as before and Sarah's was on her leg (she can elaborate if she wants (*She does NOT want* ;-) ~Sarah). Once most of the colony was in the hive, we walked away to get some dinner and let the rest of the bees come out of the box.

The Queen Cage - The queen is in there with a couple of attendants

While we were getting dinner, I had noticed that we are under a frost warning overnight tonight. So, we got all geared back up and headed back down to check on the bees only to find there were still quite a few in the box.  We opened the hive back up and after beating the box around quite a bit, we were able to get all but one or two bees into the hive.  With the hive all back together again, we called it a night and headed on in to get cleaned up for the evening and to tell you all about our exciting day.

Letting some of the remaining bees find their way out of the box

Watch our site for the video of our first adventure in beekeeping.

Also stay tuned for another post about the DIY projects that I did for the bee prep and some of the equipment that we needed to pick up for this awesome day.

Keep on Bee-ing Awesome Everyone,
Nate "The Beekeeper" Rumbaugh

“I'm covered in bees!” 
― Eddie Izzard