Bees, bees, bees…and asparagus

A close-up of the bees in their "package"

Well, I'm a beekeeper now. The bees finally arrived on Saturday after a freezing Friday night. The post office called me at 6:18 a.m. and I showed up to get them at 7:15. I had no idea what to expect - except what I had seen on the numerous videos I had watched to learn what the heck I was supposed to do to get them into the hives.

I had taken the day off on Friday because the USPS tracking said my 4 packages (2 for each hive) were expected to arrive that day. So I spent the day making sugar syrups for the new bees to live on until the flowers start blooming. Then I "prepped" the hives by putting beeswax on the top bars and set them up on their benches in the apiary. The post office called Friday at around 3:45 to say they wouldn't be coming until Saturday. And I was a little relieved.

They arrived early in the morning and it was still cold. So I waited until 4:00 p.m. to install them (because the videos said they would be ready to settle down in the late afternoon). But, having watched them for a few days now, I think I should have waited until even later - or installed them in the morning when it was cold.

I didn't do a very good job getting the first batch of bees into their hive. But it helped me learn a lot that was helpful for the second batch. For instance, that can of food, it's hard to get out. You should do that first - to both boxes.

Getting the food can out of the box was incredibly hard.

After the can finally came out, I pulled out the queen cage and saw that she was alive. Her little cage has 2 corks - one in each end. After removing one of those, I placed her cage into the hive. Then it was time to dump in the bees. First, I hit the box on the ground to make bees fall onto the floor of the package. Next, I began shaking them out of the opening, pouring them over the queen cage. And I repeated that a couple of times.

Dumping the bees into their home - and banging the sides to get them to fall.

At that point bees are starting to come out of the box and fly around. It was hard to be focused with all that buzzing. But it seemed like I was about done and I replaced the bars in the top box and started to put the sugar syrup feeder on top. Then I turned and noticed the second box. Darn. So I kinda botched the first install. With all those bees flying out of the hive now, I had to try to get that stubborn can out of the second box. Needless to say, a lot of the first group had to find their own way back into the hive because I didn't get things closed up quickly - at all.

Like I said, I learned a lot. The second hive got a lot more bees into it and I was a lot less nervous. But I did get one bee sting when I installed that second hive. And I learned that with a lot of disoriented bees around, it's smart to stay on your feet. I got stung on my knee when I knelt down and crushed one of the little ladies accidentally.

It's been 3 days now. And, upon checking this evening, it looks like all the bees that were hanging onto the outside of the hive have found their way in. And bees are busily coming and going at the hive entrance - like they work there or something :-)

Whew! that was a big job. My next task is to retrieve that queen cage - maybe on Thursday or Friday.

Asparagus in their cinderblock raised beds.

Meanwhile, Brent spent the day building some super-cool raised beds for the asparagus crowns I bought a couple of weeks ago. He also made 2 trips back to Shawnee to pick up the pulverized topsoil that fills the beds - and shoveled it into the beds. It's really no wonder we are sore and achy on Monday.

The asparagus beds span the entire south side of the house. We planted 50 crowns in over 50 feet of raised beds. It will take a year, but we should have plenty. And the fronds from the spears we don't harvest will make a pretty screen for the ground level windows.

It's all slowly (and sometimes suddenly) coming together…

…and we have BEES!