BEEing Excited

Every indication points to Spring. It is on my mind constantly. With the arrival of my honey bees scheduled for less than a month now, much of my free time goes into reading about how to care for the "girls". (Did you know all but the drones were female? I find it completely unsurprising that one of the most highly organized, complex, and industrious of all societies in the animal kingdom are comprised 85% of females). I've logged a good bit of time watching YouTube videos of folks managing their hives. Thank goodness for this information age that we live in, because despite the fact that I've never seen someone work with honey bees in real life, I still feel amazingly confident that I will be able to do this:






No problem. 


I'm feeling especially confident today because my dear sweet hubby finally put pencil to paper and then wood to saw and actually knocked out the main body of my first top bar hive!!! This makes today an auspicious day for my personal honey bee adventure. I am radiant with excitement. 

The kids and I struck out this morning and tramped around our woods to find the prefect spot to set the bee-boxes. It was thirty degrees out and sunny. They ran around like it was eighty or hotter despite the tell-tale pink to their cheeks and breath visible in the morning air. It was cold. But, we found the perfect spot that gets plenty of winter sun, but will be shaded in the summer. A nice little bit of brush will provide some protection from the west wind... in short a perfect place for hives. 


It really is nice to have something to be excited about. Come on April 2nd! I can't wait to meet the bees. What should we name the queens? Eleanor of Apiculture for sure! (Get it? Apiculture the practice of keeping bees meets Eleanor of Aquitaine as in Henry II's wife and Richard the Lionheart's mom?!) If anyone can come up with another one let me know...  Queen Bee-tifah? Queen NeferBEEti? There has to bee something better out there. ;-)