The Hiving

I sat in my car on the side of the dam entrance road waiting for a man named Bill to meet me at our predetermined spot. He was 45 minutes late, but there was no mistaking him when the white pickup pulled up, flipped a U-turn, proceeded to park in the middle of the road facing oncoming traffic, and a man in his late eighties got out in a full beekeeping suit including the zipped up veil. Bill the beekeeper had arrived!

I was meeting him to get my nucleus colony (“nuc” for short) which is basically a mini bee hive with wooden frames, a laying queen, brood, and some food stores. The idea is to transfer this miniature hive, which will already have given the bees a solid head start for the season, into a full size hive so they can continue to grow and propagate.

Bill was very nice and showed me the box of 6,000+ bees I was about to transport. The duct tape was loose on the entrance however so bees were crawling out at a pretty steady rate. “Hmm, they really want to get out of there don’t they?” he said. Indeed they do, I thought, looking at the giant mass of bees trying to escape the box that was about to be inside my car. I pointed out where the hole was in the tape so he slapped some more on it and put the nuc in my trunk. Several cars had slowed and gone around him at this point, gawking at the moon suit he was wearing and the bees flying around our heads. There were about thirty free bees still loose from the hive at this point but they seemed content to chill on the outside of the box so with the advice of “just drive slow at first” I shook Bill’s hand and was off, beginning my two hour return journey through the exceptionally winding mountain roads with many bees as companions. Honestly, as long as I didn’t get in a car accident and free the other 6,000 I was fine with it.

We did not get in an accident, the bees were fine, and the next step was transferring them into their new home. There wasn’t a ton of daylight left so I quickly watched a YouTube video about how to transfer a nuc (sure hope that was enough education…) and decided it was now or never. While I’ve gotten very adept at catching bees on tweezers and stinging with them (if you don’t know me and have no idea what I’m talking about.. there will be more of this to come on another post!) this was my first time ever handling this many bees. But I donned my newly acquired bee suit for its maiden voyage and eventually got my smoker working. I was reminded by my husband to ONLY DROP IT IN THE SAND if something unexpected happened so I don’t set the entire canyon and river bottom on fire.. excellent advice but I wasn’t sure I was going to remember it if I was being attacked by thousands of bees. He agreed to come up and film the adventure from a safe distance away, mini-bike at the ready for a quick exit if something were to go awry (he’s been on crutches full time for two years, more on this in another post, but that’s why he needs the bike as an escape plan). This of course planted the image of him tearing off on his bike to safety and me desperately running after him in my heavy boots and awkward bee suit, likely tripping and falling down, dropping the smoker in the highly flammable bushes in the process while being overtaken by an angry swarm of enraged bees.

I forced this hilarious (but also not hilarious) scenario out of my mind while trudging my equipment up the sandy wash over multiple trips. I eventually transported the most important cargo, the rather heavy box of bees, to the location of their soon to be new home. Smoker in one hand, the book Beekeeping for Dummies (aptly named) propped open on the ground next to me just in case there was time to read something important in the midst of a bee sting crisis, I gave the smoker a few puffs, took a deep breath, and slowly opened the lid on the box of bees.

It’s hard to explain the next part because it was such an amazing experience, but there I was, bare hands holding tightly yet gently onto frames while thousands of bees crawled around me unperturbed, all humming at the same soothing frequency, not minding my presence and continuing to tend to their brood and build honey comb and care for their queen all the while. I know they were aware of me, but they weren’t afraid, so I wasn’t either. It felt like a beautiful and mutual understanding of vulnerability and trust.

If you’re wondering why no gloves, it’s for several reasons - one being that you’re a lot more clumsy with gloves on (dropping a frame full of bees is not a good idea) and you’re a lot less likely to accidentally crush bees with bare hands. I also believe that they can smell and start to recognize your hands, they’re very tactile creatures, and it feels like they would trust bare hands more than fat, clumsy gloves. So I opted to really feel what I was doing and oddly enough as soon as I started I just kind of knew it was safe and they weren’t going to sting me. (On a side note, nucleus colonies are very gentle - they’ve just been displaced, they’re small, and they don’t have a lot of honey stored up to protect yet. Later in the season, when bees naturally get much more protective of their food stores, I will more than likely be wearing gloves. But for now, working with them with bare hands is a very special feeling, and no, I didn’t get stung).

I transferred all the frames, hoped I did it right, and put the roof back on their new home. All of the bees in the video above made it into the hive before nightfall, and since this initial “hiving” I’ve inspected them again and all is looking good — new eggs laid by the queen (I teared up when I saw them because I was so nervous I might have killed her in the process of moving their frames), water and food being gathered, baby bees in various stages of development. I’ll open their hive again today to inspect — new beekeepers are advised to do this once a week while learning what to look for. I still plan to use bare hands for now and if I get stung, it’s because they’re trying to tell me something. And just like old man Bill, I too love the bees.