Sad day in bee-ville

I'm sorry to say, my bees have been delayed again due to all of the rain we've been having, so I am going to have to wait until next year. Next year I'm going to order EARLY.

Rain, rain go away, come again another day

So I still haven't painted the hive yet (but I will).  Now I see rain in the forecast for this weekend.  That's bad news for the little bugs.  They don't like rain when trying to get into a new home.  I've read that if it's raining, you need to keep them dry, so they'll be going in my garage if it rains, where I can hose them down with sugar water to keep them fed.  Sound like fun?  I hope my boys (like my youngest 3 year old) don't open the box up.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to buy the paint and finish the hive.  From now until Friday, I'll be praying the coulds overhead will rain themselves out by the time Friday rolls around, so there will be plenty of blossoms, but dry weather too!

The hive is done...almost

I've decided I'm going to keep bees. I started thinking about it last year about this time (which was too late, you need to have everything ready by now). My grandpa keeps bees (a ton of them, I don't know how many hives he has), and I thought it would be a good way to show some pioneer spirit. Bees are fascinating creatures. I plan on sharing some bee trivia on every post, we'll see how far that goes. Bees guard the entrance to their hive, but if a stranger bee comes to the entrance, he can bribe the guard with some nectar and get some honey from inside!

I have a hive. It is almost done, all I need is to paint the outside, which I plan on doing this week. My bees are coming May 8th. I'm getting excited! I ordered them a little late, but with the cool weather we're having now, I'm not regretting it at all. I ordered 4 lbs to make up for the late start. It's kind of hard to imagine 4 lbs of bees, how much does a bee weigh? How many bees does that make up? Some of them die in transit (sad). The queen will be shipped separately, and I have to go through this whole process to get the bees acclimated to their new queen. I have the weekend they are coming off, so I should be able to devote all the time I need to them. Fun!