Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Off to P.N.'s to get bees!

So off to P.N.'s we went that Friday night. Somebody else was picking up bees that night, a woman with 2 young sons. The older one was 13 - his mom said he'd been wanting bees since he was little and had spent the winter in the garage with his little brother building his bee hive out of parts. What a cool mom! Can you imagine having a child nag you for pet insects? Stinging ones?

When it was my turn, I went over to the nuc with P.N. and watched as he packed it up. There were some bees hanging out in front - he sprayed them with water from a spray bottle to get them back in the nuc box, which I found pretty interesting. They didn't see to be ticked off at being sprayed, but it had the desired effect. He took a little screened cover and placed it over the hive entrance, and bungeed it in place. One bungee holding the lid on the top and one holding the door on, and we're ready to roll back home. The instructions were to put the nuc box near my equipment and take the bungee holding the screen cover off. I was a ball of stomach acid as I got ready to do this - half expecting to be attacked. But no... a few bees came out but didn't fly. Tomorrow was the day! I had expert help lined up to help me in the morning.

But on the way home I had to remark to Alan - how weird is it that we are not the only people driving up I75 with a big box of bees in the car?

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