…That I finally pick up my bees.

What a clever pun, right? I thought of it while standing in the Walmart parking lot staring at the 75 pounds of sugar wanting to do anything but load it into the truck bed after the insanely exhausting day I had. It started the previous day where I, while preparing the truck to pick up a load of manure compost, impulsively decided to split an entire stack of freshly cut oak and hickory for my dad. It left my upper back very sore today.

I loaded up the truck including 7 gallons of fresh water and the 40 pound package of electric fencing I received. Upon arriving at the farm after the 90 minute drive, I unloaded everything, then unloaded the entire bed of manure compost into the raised garden beds. After a 25 minute drive into town, I had to crouch to reach the 12 cinder blocks whose need brought me to Lowe’s, loaded them onto the impossible to steer cart, rung them up and loaded them into truck bed which was freshly emptied of manure. Then I shot over to walmart in search of bulk sugar where I wound up getting 3-25 pound bags. With arms feeling like jelly, I procrastinated on loading by thinking up the pun in the title of this post.

The cinder blocks will serve as hivestands for the beehives while the sugar will be made into a syrup to sustain the hive until nectar starts flowing. 4 gallons of that water will be used to make the syrup as well as make a calming spray to hopefully appease the bees while I figure out how to get them from one of these:

 

into these:

Armed with only knowledge obtained from books and blogs as well as a 1-day class but absolutely zero practical experience, the beekeeping adventure starts now. I’ll try and document as much as possible, but working solo in a veil and cowhide-clad hands may limit the ability to secure photographic evidence. Consider me lucky if I can even fire off a post tomorrow amid the excitement and chaos that will be accompanying the establishment of my first 2 bee colonies. I will do my best at both!