Those of you - my truly loyal readers - who've been around long enough to remember part one of this epic saga: I am happy to inform you that the wait is over.
Though still tenant-less our hive has stayed with us over the past year. We toted it from our old home to our new and snuggled it into a corner, full of grand plans of getting the bee game going again. We've considered mail-ordering a swarm, but that's not the cool way to get bees. The cool way to get bees is certainly to salvage them, to find a swarm and domesticate it. But we haven't been able to find one.
I should really stop talking now, because I don't know much about any of this. I'm much more on the honey side then on the bee side. The honey side allows me to indulge my crunchcravings. Raw. Local. Cheap. I can employ my old IKEA curtains as cheesecloth and use up a ton of jam/salsa/peanut butter jars for honey storage. It's VERY therapeutic.
Anyhow...back to the saga...
On Saturday Jacob noticed some extra activity around the hive. Some bees seemed to be checking the place out, and as the day wore on there were more and more. By the afternoon Jacob was convinced they'd moved in.
This post doesn't seem to be thoroughly conveying the emotion of this event. It involved Jacob going down to the hive every five minutes to check on things and coming back up to the house to give me updates. Eventually he couldn't even leave them alone. After about half an hour I went to see what was up and found him peacefully sitting and watching the hive. He looked at me and said in all seriousness:
"They're getting used to my scent."
A while later he came up in a tizzy and told me he thought the hive was being attacked by honey robbers. Honey robbers - he quickly informed me - are bees from another hive that...rob honey. The box had become a veritable battleground, and Jacob was determined to help his fledgling hive defend their new abode from the thirsty intruders. He went back down armed with some old bricks and set upon the project of making the hive more defensible.
So yes. We are currently at war. Or at least we were on Saturday.
Join with us in hoping that the good bees win and get promptly to work.
This makes me so happy! Last year, my class found a bee swarm in a tree by the field where we had recess. I immediately thought of your bee-less plight, and while I couldn't think of a practical way to get the swarm to you all, I was able to convince my principal that the best way to handle it would NOT be an exterminator. Heroic, I know!
ReplyDeleteYou're a total hero in our book, Anne! You'd get the Rhodes Hero of the Month award if there was such a thing!
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