To Bee or… TO BEE!
One day, Jeff discovered on a great local site called DIY Del Ray these really cool under-counter worm-assisted composters. It’s a whole “circle of life” thing – we eat food, we share the food with the worms, the worms make nice fertilizer for our plants. It seemed simple enough. What I didn’t realize is that the composter people are also beekeepers. And they like to teach others how to be beekeepers.
It was not long before Jeff proposed the bees. My first response was something really poetic like, “HELL no!” After months of mentioning it – and promising that I wouldn’t have to work and could still reap the honey, he won. The gears were put in motion with AzureB and before we knew it, our bee delivery was scheduled. Jeff casually asked me one day, “Hey – do you have any idea how many bees will be in each hive?” My response: “About a hundred?” His (laughing) response: “About a fifty THOUSAND.” Per hive. And we were getting two.
Our first delivery date was postponed because the weather had been cold and rainy – apparently, that makes the bees “ornery,” according to the bee whisperer, Stefano. And even I know that the last thing you want is ornery bees.
On a Tuesday afternoon, Stefano arrived to set up our beautiful hives, which he had built and seasoned himself. Honestly, they were really pretty even without the bees. But then he brought them in… two bountiful boxes of buzzing beauties. The first step was to check that the queen was content – she seemed pretty cool to me, especially since she came equipped with her own attendants in a little “queen cage.” The next step is what I like to call, “pour the bees into the hive” because he literally turned the boxes over and poured the bees like molasses into the hives. It was the single coolest thing I have seen in a very long time. At this point, the bees were really buzzing. We all stood around, utterly fascinated, and watched as they swarmed around harmlessly and settled in. In the days since, the activity level is impressive, but I doubt we will ever see that same surge again. You can read the step-by-step process on DIY Del Ray, where Leslie captured the experience so beautifully with words and photos.
Now that we’re all acquainted, every day we say good morning to the bees as they leave on their rounds. Every evening, we check in again as they begin to settle down. Often, I find that I sneak out there just to sit and listen. We haven’t gotten honey yet (it’ll be over a year) but our little colonies seem to be thriving.
So I guess we now have LOTS of pets. And they’re either slimy or they sting. Oddly, this makes complete sense. And at least I don’t have to walk them, right?