A sure sign of spring

Jennifer from Buck Naked Farms has blessedly been our beekeeper for years now. She tends to the girls and keeps things right, so I don’t have to.

So when I was walking back from the barn last Sunday and saw this.

I didn’t have that sinking feeling of, “Oh, not something else that needs to be done today. I have enough.”

Instead it was, “Oh, I’ll text our wonderful beekeeper and this can be her problem.”

Then this happened.

Um, she ain’t gonna be here in time to get these girls traveling from Utah. Ugh, I claim to be a former beekeeper on every tour I give. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t catch them. I also couldn’t face Jennifer, regardless of her permission to “let them go” if I didn’t try. I did say they’d be an easy catch.

I clopped back over to the barn, to uncover my beekeeping gear. It was conveniently located behind the paint booth, a shaper (weighs about 5000 lbs) that I was going to rebuild 10 years ago, and a pile of airplane parts I haven’t gotten to yet.

With bee gear in hand, I set about catching the swarm in a box I had laying about. Not a fancy beekeeper box, mind you. I’m talking a cardboard box that probably contained breakfast sausages at some point.

The bees were a bit more sprightly than I’ve encountered before with a swarm and I ended up getting Spork to help me because of course I’d not lit my smoker. In fact, I didn’t even have it with me. But with his help, we got some smoke going and the bees to settle down. I then rehived them in the box that Jennifer references in her text and everyone settled down for the night. Jennifer has already been by to check on them now and they appear to be moving in nicely.

Score one for the old beekeeper! I haven’t completely lost my touch.