The Bees are Coming!
It’s a really big day on our farm tomorrow. The bees are coming, the bees are coming! We get to go pick up our preordered 3 pound package of bees and this year, it’s allllll excitement and no anxiety. Well maybe just a little anxiety. But nothing like last year.
Last year, well, I met last year’s bee pickup with a whole lot of nerves.
Nerves, you ask? Why nerves? Or maybe you’re asking, why bees? What’s so exciting about getting bees? Why bother? Is it easy? Is it really worth it?
Stick around and bee ready for some bad puns and then you decide!
Why Bees?
Bees. Are. The. Most. Amazing. Creatures! Ever!
They truly are. These little things pack such an environmental punch. It is amazing that I, and most people, have coexisted with bees without really stopping to think about just how important the honey bee is to our lives. Yes, specifically to your life and to my life. That a little tiny winged creature could have the weight of the whole human race on it’s back…epic.
Why Not Bees?
Why not get bees, indeed?
In the past, my husband and I had always talked about “someday” getting bees. He had been around hives some and I had grown up around 25 hives or so on my family’s farm. The bees were just always there, the hives sitting “quietly” in a row facing the ginormous vegetable gardens, in the middle of our 100 acre apple, peach and pear orchards.
There was nothing “quiet” about what was going on with that row of hives though. Those bees, the little powerhouses, were beyond busy. You could hear the buzz of wings as the worker bees took off from the hive after dropping off the pollen they just carted back. And the riotously steady hum coming from inside those curious boxes. It was the other worker bees fanning their wings to cool the hive and their queen! It was a whole other world that, at the time, I knew nothing about.
All I knew was that if we didn’t bother the bees or threaten their hives, they wouldn’t bother us. And so it was. My brother and I would pick vegetables and the bees would pick their blossoms. Everyone was happy; except usually my brother and I who would’ve preferred at the time to be running around exploring or swimming or poking ourselves in the eye with a sharp stick. Anything besides picking dusty veggies in the blazing sun and hiking them back up the hill (and why couldn’t we just use the tractor or golf cart?)
While I am beyond grateful now for every single hot, sweaty, dirty, character building, educational second of that opportunity that I call my childhood, at the time, I whined. But I digress.
Back to the bees and how we ended up with our very own to care for…
In trying to come up with a Christmas present for my husband 2 years ago, it hit me. A bee hive! Gotta have the “cart before the horse” in this case, right? And besides, how hard can it be to keep bees? Plunk the hive down, give it some time and collect honey.
Perfect. It was time for a “fun and easy hobby”. After all, we spent the last 5 years, clearing land, fencing, creating pasture, building our log cabin (yes, he and I and my dad, fueled by my mom’s cooking, built it all ourselves) and then our even larger barn, taking care of our livestock, gardening, and working our day jobs, etc. So it was about time for an “easy” project for sure. Hhmph.
So I looked on Craigslist and found a great guy (hey Karl!!!), relatively local to us, who in conjunction with his Amish friend, made and sold Langstroth bee hives. I should’ve known then that there was going to be more to this beekeeping thing (there’s different types of hives? Huh?). Anyway, I was going for this one because it looked awesome.
I met up with Karl at our agreed upon location- the back parking lot of the Friendly’s restaurant right off the Mass Pike- on a cold day at dusk just before Christmas. We slid the hive components into the back of the truck (what the heck was all this and was I going to know in what order it goes back together?) Jeez, I thought I only needed to worry about how to hide it all for the 3 days before Christmas, but now, all these different pieces? Brood boxes, supers, deeps, base, inner cover, foundation, reducer, frames, what the heck were all these things Karl was spouting off? Well, no biggie, we’ve got until Spring to figure it out. We’ve got all winter to YouTube it, read about it and research it. How hard can it bee (yes, pun intended)?
Right then, I had more important and pressing issues. How to hide it all…
The next morning when my husband went to work, I lugged it into the spare room, stacked it in 2 columns and draped a quilt over it. Getting ready for holiday company I’m forever moving things around and rearranging, so when another piece of “furniture” shows up out of nowhere? Why not? He’ll never notice. And he did not.
And finally, Christmas morning. The look of surprise (and is that delight, I hoped?) on my husband’s face when, voilà!, off came the quilt to reveal a beautiful bunch of waxed boxes. Did I do good, honey (pun)? Yes, I did good. Yay he likes it!
Visions of us leisurely enjoying simple YouTube bee videos over morning coffee and eventually jars of golden honey to put in said coffee were dancing in my mind.
Is Beekeeping Easy?
Well winter does have a way of buzzing by. (Who am I fooling? Both furniture and every season has a way of buzzing by on our farm.) After several of those bee videos and many more morning coffees, it was time to place an order for bees. A 3 pound package? A marked Queen? Nucs? What to get and where from?
That finally decided, we blinked and it was already time to go pick them up! So it was binge watching more videos on what to do when you get your packaged bees and how to get them in the hive. Except, everyone had a different method. Oh jeez. But the one thing everyone DID agree on was, bees hate the cold, the rain and the wind. If you’re unfortunate enough to have any of that weather then perhaps you might want to wait to put them in their hive.
You guessed it. On pickup day, we had that whole unhappy trifecta of $h!t weather that makes us New Englanders so resilient. But the little bees that just came up from the south? Not so resilient yet.
Oh my anxiety! Poor bees! First they’re stuck (yup pun) with inexperienced “owners” and now this crap weather after a long journey. What to do?
We decided to lean on some resources and ask some local veteran beekeepers. To put in the hive immediately or not to? that was the question. Thanks to our beehive guy Karl (and his patient wife), et al. we learned that it was ok to leave them in the barn until the gusty downpours stopped.
We heard “if you need to spray them with some sugar water to calm and feed them you can, but not too much that their wings stick together, and make sure you have the right ratio of sugar:water!” and “Don’t wait too long and try to get them in and settled quickly!” and other sundry bits of advice, “No problem, just do it.” And then, “Just wait.” Oh boy.
What if we don’t get this right? Will I have 3 pounds of suffering and dead bees on my conscience? This was scaring the beejeezus (mmhmm) out of me.
Finally, it was time. This was it. Bees going in. Suit up (although my husband said he was fine with just a hat and net, and he was, although I don’t recommend it), hive in place, slide the can of sugar water out of the package, cover the hole so they don’t escape just yet, pull the little queen cage out, take out the “right” cork, make sure the bees can get to the fondant “cork” to eat their way to the queen, and tape the black strip on the top of the frame. Then gently shake the bees out into the hive. Try not to kill and smoosh any when putting the frames back in and the cover on. Done!
Whew! Relief in waves!
But wait. Did we do it right? Are they going to be ok? Now what do we do?
And I thought this was going to be easy! I’m losing sleep over these poor bees!
Somewhere along the way I read something similar to this… having bees is like having a garden, a garden that can get very angry, sting you over and over and get up and leave at any time. Here’s the gist…
You can’t just plant a garden, forget about it and come back for an abundance veggies. Lots of work and behind the scenes stuff takes place before you can receive a harvest!
Well bees are the same way. Except, if you don’t tend to them properly, they can attack you and swarm off anytime they want (did I mention that already?) In other words, you can’t just plunk the hive down, shake the bees in and magically have a thriving bee colony, and their byproduct, honey.
There is an awful lot of work and knowledge that goes into beekeeping. I’ve spoken with 20 year veteran beekeepers who say that they are still learning things about bees!
A wise and caring beekeeper will make sure the hive is placed in a good location, monitor hive activity regularly, check and treat bees for parasites and protect them from all predators- from the smallest ant to the largest bear, provide more hive room as needed, and water, shelter and feed properly for all the seasons.
Hive management is crucial for a healthy colony! And of course, you need to love and enjoy your bees because that counts too.
Beekeeping. Not. So. Simple.
Is Beekeeping Worth It?
Is it worth it? Is beekeeping worth it, you ask?
It. Is. Oh. So. Worth. It!
This year, going to get our bees is met with pure excitement. Knowing what to expect and how this all works tamps down the anxiety that I experienced last year. This year we also have a new friend coming, another local beekeeper who offered to come up and help us put our new package of bees in (to a Nuc box, something new to us, since we are still having cold nights), pull some drawn frames from our current hive to place in with the new bees to give them a jump start, and also to split our current colony who thankfully seemed to thrive over the winter. We’ll look at them closer tomorrow when we open them up to be sure!
Beekeeping is definitely less anxiety ridden, easier and more enjoyable if you can find another beekeeper to help you. There is nothing like hands-on, on-the-job education. And I just love bee people because the amazing thing about beekeepers (“beeks”) is that they will talk about bees, lend a hand and share their resources with you, all. day. long.
Why?
Because of a shared love of these extraordinary little creatures and a desire to see them thrive. Because a beekeeper knows just how hard these tiny powerhouses work and the essential impact each and every little bee has on our environment, in each and every one of their short, 2-6 week, life spans.
To sit and watch the erratic flight of an exhausted bee coming back to the hive, pollen sacs loaded, struggling her way into the hive with her contribution and knowing that her contribution was also made out in the world…it’s truly like watching a miracle.
Anyone who thinks
they’re too small
to make a difference,
has never met
the honeybee.
– unknown
Hey! Need any ideas on what type of beekeeping equipment to use? Try out these items that we’ve found to work well:
hive tool
bee brush
bee hive smoker
beekeepers suit
beekeepers jacket