For our first blog post, I thought I would tell you a little about the beginning of our journey into beekeeping.
We knew we were both interested in learning about honey bees for a while. Caleb has been watching YouTube videos on beekeeping for a few years (we are big believers in YouTube University to learn new skills). There is one channel that he finds especially interesting because the beekeeper on this channel has extensive knowledge about bees. If you're interested in knowing which channel this is, please feel free to message us or comment below.
Instead of watching Netflix, we would sometimes watch different YouTube channels on beekeeping, expanding our knowledge and interest in honey bees.
After doing some research and finding somewhere local(ish) to purchase, and deciding on which kind of honey bee would work best for us, we placed our order for two Italian honey bee packages in June of 2021, with a March 2022 pickup date. We knew that our house build would be complete by then, and it is best to start hives in early Spring, so they have time to develop and grow their numbers and strength before winter hits.
Near the end of March 2022, we drove Caleb's flatbed truck 142 miles (one way) to pick up our bees from Mountain Sweet Honey in Toccoa, GA. We complained about how far this drive was and Caleb even asked me if I couldn't have found somewhere more local to home to buy bee packages. When we got to Mountain Sweet Honey, there was another couple at the checkout counter asking if they could drive home with their bee packages in the trunk of their car. The ladies behind the counter asked where the customers were from, and when the customer said "Tampa", the ladies behind the counter laughed and Caleb looked at me in disbelief and said, "Tampa, FLORIDA"?!?
They explained that the bees would surely die in the trunk of the customers car and instructed them to keep them inside the car with the temperature as cold as they could stand it so that it would keep the bees calm.
Caleb and I drove the 2 1/2+ hours back home with the AC on full blast, chattering our teeth and thankful we were not driving all the way to Tampa. There were a few bees called "hitchhikers" on the outside of the packages that didn't make it inside with their colony before the package was sealed. This added another level of excitement to the drive home, and even more encouragement for us to keep the cab of the truck cold so that these free bees would remain calm and not fly around and sting us for no reason. It's funny how much you can fear a thing until you learn more about it.
When we finally got home, we made sure everything was set up properly for the bees and began to pour them into their new hives. We needed to make sure that each queen was alive, and remove a cork from her exit so that she and her worker bees could chew through the sugar over the next few days to allow her to escape the small cage and begin working in her new hive.
We are now just over 2 weeks into beekeeping and have learned immensely more information about the bees than we had learned yet from YouTube or Google research. Both hives are healthy and growing along with our knowledge of these amazing tiny creatures. I am glad that we prepared ourselves with research, but I also personally learn best from jumping in and *doing*.
I will be sure to keep sharing updates about our bees and other fun things happening on the farm. Please follow along and let us know what you'd like us to write about next!
-Renee
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