It was BLAZING hot yesterday (80 degrees!), and after a long day of toiling on the house project, I came back to the apartment pretty close to sundown. As I got out of the truck, i heard a buzzing in the tool shed… so I investigated and discovered that in the heat, my extra stored beehive parts had let off a pleasant honeylike odor, inviting all random bees in the area to stop by and investigate. Now, I share this tool shed with the landlord and Emily, who keeps potting soil and so forth in there, so I figured that it must be time to take my bee shizzle elsewhere, lest a few dozen bees loitering in the shed cause some political unrest at home.  Tired though I was, I loaded all the various feeders, hive bodies, honey supers, and so forth into the back of my truck, where is just barely fit. There were still a few bees drifting around, so I left the tailgate open, figuring they would go home as the sun set.

The next morning, I arose a bit late (8am?) to discover that there were a few dozen bees buzzing around the back of my truck. “I guess the foragers are out early” I thought to myself, annoyed that I would have to drive this gear off to the farm and strand a few bees in the process. I ate my breakfast, assembled my gear for the day, and then noticed there was a thunderous buzzing that had slowly built up.

“What’s all that ruckus about, bees?” I joked as I went out to put my gear in the truck. But to my surprise, there were no bees to be seen. Not a single one. I looked left, then right… then up. There, about 20 feet in the air, was a HUGE cloud of bees. About 30,000 of them. (click to enlarge)

I’ve seen a swarm before, and that was definitely what was brewing. So I went back inside, and over the next hour or so we watched as the entire swarm moved into one of the empty beehives- right in the back of my truck! How’s that for convenient? Turns out, those “foragers” this morning were actually scout bees, and they came to consensus pretty quickly about where the new home should be. They then went back and brought the whole colony with them. They immediately set up shop, sending out foragers, storing honey, doing all the things that bees like to do. I went about my daily business and left the truck at home, back open, so as not to disturb them.

I came back at about 7pm, and by that time all the bees were in the hive and bedding down for the night. I quietly closed the back of the truck, drove it out to the farm, and set the hive up out in the orchard with the others. Ta-Daah! New beehive! Amazingly, the truck ride out to the farm didn’t disturb them one bit; when I opened the back of the truck upon arrival, only about three or four bees even took flight. The other 29,997 were resting calmly in the equipment.

…about how nice it is to live on our farm! The final piece of the farm-grant puzzle came together yesterday, when I went to Portland to pick up a dozen crates of bees for my new hives. A lot of people in this half of the state get their bees from the same place, on the same day, so it’s pretty exciting. The bee store is normally a sleepy establishment, but on this day it has extra help on hand, extra checkouts, people to direct traffic, the works. It’s also funny and surreal, because half of the people in there are actually wearing their bee suits (not the norm) and there are occasional random bees drifting through the fancy, front-end part of the store, having lost their way from their friends waiting in the warehouse. Here I am, standing by a few pallets of bees.

From there, back on the road and home to Gravel Creek. But first, a stop for lunch. No, I didn’t lock the back of the truck while I was away. The thought of someone opening up the truck to pilfer something and finding all those buzzing, excited bees is very amusing to me.  Anyway, two hours later and I was home and ready to put the bees in their new residences. I’ve never hived so many bees at once before, but it was kindof fun, getting the system down and just being efficient. All told, it took about two hours to get them comfortable in their new, high-class digs.  And the final sting tally? Only three. Though the one on my chin was awfully painful. Note to self: when leaning over, do not let my face brush against the screen mesh of the bee veil, especially when there are dozens of angry bees hanging from it.

Last week we had a break in the rain and cold, and the bees went out for a little buzz around the hive. You go, little guys! I was busy as well, building hives in anticipation of the arrival of the new bees for the 2014 season. Remember the grant I told you about a few weeks ago, that Emily used to buy the walking tractor? Well, I used a big chunk of mine to by supplies and equipment to set up a dozen new bee colonies, bringing our total to about 20 or so. This is a big step, not just in terms of extra work, but also financially. A package of bees is about $100, and a hive costs about $250 or so once you add in all the extra stuff like honey supers, frame feeders, some sort of stand, and so forth. I am making my hives out of cedar, so they will be a bit more expensive than pine hives, but they will last longer and don’t need to be painted. Since I’m making them in bulk, I’m saving a little bit of money.

Or, rather, trading time for money. Here we see a team of happy volunteers, making brood boxes. We have a station for ripping the cedar and cutting the rabbets for the frames, another for cutting the corners, and one for assembling. In a later step, I used a router to cut the lifting lugs in the sides. When these hives are done, they are going to be totally sweet. Emily gave me some guff about being smart about where I spend my time, and she’s right- there are a lot of things that need my attention right now. So, luckily, there have been offers to help on the beehives.  Also, another timesaver is that I’m going to use plastic frames. They intrigue me, and my friend Mark has had good luck with them in Indiana. This takes out the most time consuming assembly task, which is good when you consider there are 20 frames in a basic hive, and 40 once you get two honey supers on it… so we’re talking about putting together 480 frames. Yikes.

Bees arrive some time in early April, so I have only a week or two to get this finished. Wish me luck!

As an interesting side note, I saw these pictures today (courtesy of Whole Foods) showing what a grocery store might look like if there were no bees to pollinate our crops. This is another reason people should give a darn about pesticides killing bees…