what did you do today?

We got a phone call that Cam's bees were being delivered today. So that meant that we got to start and finish painting the hive yesterday! Cam did a great job on it! He hardly got any paint at all on the garage floor! I would love for him to have done this little paint job outside, but there were severe storms in the area, and I only bought the paint yesterday, so he had to do his work in the garage! After work today, I drove to Gardner to pick up the bees. This was a little bit of an adventure for me. I was not sure what to expect, as I have never picked up a package of bees before! They needed to be picked up before Cam got out of school, so he could not go with me. So Quincy, Harper and I made the epic journey! Cam's mentor had warned me that sometimes a few bees can escape from these cages, so I might want to put the package in a tote so that they could not escape in the van while I was driving home. When I got to the place to pick them up, the man in charge told me that I really should not do that to them....that they would not escape in the car and that I would be fine! Nervously, I listened to him. Now, when I was picking up these bees, it was at an established bee farm. Apparently, when you bring in a truckload of about 500 packages of new bees, the existing bees get a little curious, so as I was waiting for our package to be unloaded, and then loaded in my van, I happened to notice that there were quite a lot of bees flying around my head, and the girls heads. I convinced Quincy that bees do not eat little girls, and that she should not swat at them....which she did a great job of not doing! I did happen to notice that the father of one of the other scholarship winners was not doing so well with the bees around his head. I had to giggle when the professional bee keeper told him DO NOT SWAT at them or you are going to get stung! Quincy quickly told him that bees only eat honey and flowers, NOT people!

So the professional guy loaded up the other scholarship girl's van with her bees and they left. He then showed me that he was sweeping 'his' bees off the outside of the package and loaded it into my van. He instructed me to try to keep my van on the cool side for the ride home, and I was off. I got maybe 1/2 mile up the road when I see the other scholarship winner's van pulled off the road, the girl is wildly swinging her arms, and they have all the doors/windows open on their van! I am thinking that they had an escapee!!

Cameron's bees were very well behaved all the way home! Nobody escaped, and they were nice and quiet all the way. They arrived safe and alive at our house!

Cam's mentor was going to help him load them into the hive this evening, however he decided that since it was so cold and rainy, it would be much better for the bees to feed them in the package and place them in their hive tomorrow when it is nicer. He instructed Jim on how to feed the bees. They like to drink sugar water. Well, I can make sugar water, but I did panic a little bit about how in the heck you feed a package of bees without losing an arm! You might notice the can in the center of the cage? Well, we had to use a can opener and re-fill that with the sugar water. I was a nervous wreck, but the boys and I got it done....and the bees did not seem to even notice that we were messing with their cage....and most importantly, we did not let any escape or get stung!

All in all, if they survive the cold tonight, I am going to call Cam's first day as an official beekeeper a success!