the ladies have arrived

After years of wanting bees, I finally picked up a couple of hives today. Boy were those girls pissed off by the time they arrived! I had to drive to Thomasville to get them, so the drive back was about and hour and fifteen minutes of them vibrating in the back of the truck. I hadn't thought through the process for how I would get them to the spot I had chosen for them. It really started to worry me when I was carrying them to the truck with the help of the seller. They were heavy! A full brood chamber and a super each -- I'd guess well over 100 pounds.

I tried calling a couple of people, but no one was available, so I bit the bullet and carried them by myself -- injured hand and all. (It was fascinating to listen to the hives hum when they were still in the truck) . The first hive went fine. It was heavy, but manageable. The second hive -- the one that was so full of bees that they were congregating outside when I went to pick them up -- was much heavier. I got it to the spot ok, but then couldn't get it low enough. I had to just go down and hope the cinder blocks were underneath (did I mention it was dark?). They weren't. I ended up slowly leaning the hive over, which created a gap between the brood chamber and the super. The bees immediately came pouring out, even more pissed now that their home had been turned sideways in addition to being transported across the state. They didn't attack me, at least not right away. I left them alone for a few minutes after setting the hive upright. I still needed to remove the piece blocking the entrance on both hives. After doing that, I knew I should probably just leave it until tomorrow, but I just couldn't let it go. So I kept going back and finally got it on the cinder blocks and removed the entrance blocker. Oh yeah, Mr Fritts had stuffed some foam rubber into a gap at the entrance to seal it all the way, and that was the first piece that came off. The bees started pouring out of that, too.

I was a little worried watching the bees just cluster all over the front and sides. On the other hive, the bees were clustering, too, but nowhere near as many.

I hope the second hive doesn't decide that the trauma of the move and being sideways for a couple of minutes is just too much and decide to swarm. This shows how much I have to learn. Does that sort of thing cause swarming? Hopefully I won't find out tomorrow. Just in case, I put my new hive just in front of the troubled one in hopes that they would choose the new one if they did swarm. I have heard of that happening. (The picture was taken after I finished painting them a few days ago. I like the yellow much better. White hives are boring.)

I got stung a couple of times on my neck. All in all, a bit more drama than I had expected on my first night as a beekeeper, but the drama was my fault. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the girls will forgive me tomorrow.

Some misc pictures from my first real experience with bees -- helping my new mentor Randall work his bees last month. We set up a nuc for me after finding some queen cells, but the hive didn't make it.