It's the Bees Knees!

Hello There Folks!

Wow, once again, it seems like I'm late to post, but this time I have a good excuse, I promise! I've been hiving bees!

Don't give me that look--it's true! This really isn't another "the-dog-ate-my-homework" sort of excuse! I REALLY did hive bees over the weekend, and am prepping to hive another TWO this weekend!

You will remember some time back we were jumping through hoops to get the bees in the first place. Yes, we live in New York City, and *ahem* yes bees are banned here.

But my landlady is a name in the world of Green Living (you can catch her show on the Sundance channel, actually!) and managed to get a few strings pulled. ( I see you giving me that look again--I PROMISE I am not making this story up!)

ANYHOO...

Despite all of that, it was no easy feat getting the BEES, themselves. As you may or may not know, there is a shortage of bees because of Colony Collapse Disorder, and wave of heavy interest in beekeeping. So, many apiaries were dern near sold out of bees by the time we ordered.

I won't go into the painful--err--interesting bits of finally getting our bees, but the jist of it went something like this:

* Called ten different states, listened to eight different accents tell me they "were sold out of bees for the season."

* Called more states to find out that their delivery of bees would be later than our climate could manage, or that they wouldn't take anything but check, or they couldn't deliver them properly.

* Called more people who, in within the span of the hour when I said I would call right back, had managed to sell out of bees...

* FINALLY located someone who could meet our credit-card-paying-need-it-asap criteria.

*Held breath as bees were delivered 3 days, then had to cart them from post office (by the way you could NOT scare people faster than drag a nuc hive box though the postal window of a packed city postal facility).

*Managed to lug them onto our city roof! Yay--were half-way there!

Next up--hiving. My landlady's coworker, Dwaine, was a willing participant. It helps that he lives two doors down from us, and is curious about learning this stuff. We are also filming a documentary about city bees, so Nadia, a documentary film-maker, was there shooting also.

~~I should note that bees are usually sent in two ways: as package bees, where new bees (newbies?) are sent with a young/new queen in a smaller package or as a nuc (nucleus), which is an established family of bees with their own queen and their own frames with started honey and babies on the frames. We got the nuc, shipped with five of their own frames in a nuc box

Here are some pics from the day:

Here are Dwaine and I. He could be looking at my funny because a) he is really nervous as he's never hived bees before or b) he thinks I am a weirdo for acting like "we look rad in our beesuits..rock on!"

Here is lovely Nadia, and her camera. Although she was just shooting, we made sure she wore a bee suit!

Up first--the open nuc hive, which is set close to the permanent hive, at left...

Closeup of the nuc hive--they were packed pretty tight!

Here I am holding the first frame...yes, it's really me!

Closeup of bee frame...

Dwaine eventually got brave and helped me transfer a couple of frames....

Three frames over, two to go. I loosen each frame slowly with the hive tool...

Here is Dwaine helping transfer another hive...

When all of the frames had been transferred, I gave the nuc box one last shake to remove stragglers. We eventually left that box on its side to let the last of the bees find their way to their new home.

Once the bees are completely transferred, I place the outer cover over the hive...

Closeup of the bees at the inner cover

And the outer cover...

AND WE'RE ALL DONE!!

Dwaine poses by by the finished hive. We are using an entrance feeder (the glass jar, upside down at the outside right), for the day and will remove it. In it is sugar water, which we are giving them after their long trip.

And that is our bee story....until Saturday, when the bee story continues--we will be hiving PACKAGE bees.

Don't forget to visit my last post about how you can help change America (well, sort of) :)