Bees

My cousin Kathy drove down to SLC to pick up her order of bees.  She has been preparing for them.  She got her hives all ready and borrowed a suit from a friend that cost $400, if you can believe that. I am glad that she could borrow it. As her and Troy were driving home to Malad about 20 bees got out of the shipping box and were buzzing along their back window of their car.  Kind of freaky. We had been planning to meet them at their house to watch her transfer her bees into her hive. Kathy thought it was just because we wanted to see her get stung!  I reassured her that it WAS NOT to watch her get stung.  But I do know where the Malad hospital is if she does get stung and has a reaction.

I think Troy was a little nervous about the whole ordeal.  He kept wanting to know what her "plan" was so he knew that she knew what she was doing.  So while she carried out all the tasks, Kirk was reading from her beekeeping book as to how to transfer the queen into the hive.

 I have never seen so many bees. It was incredible and a little scary.

Kathy sprayed some sort of sugar water on them so they couldn't fly. 

The queen was considerably larger than the others just like it says in books. Kathy had to anchor the queen into the hive and then dump the rest of the bees into the hive.

It was pretty neat to watch. I am glad that we drove over to see. 

Kathy had to plug the bees into the hive for three days so they wouldn't leave. Sometimes the queen will die or flies off and then you lose your whole hive.

So far so good. Kathy peeked and the bees seem to be doing fine.