Bees!

Bees. It's been many weeks of anticipation and education as I attended bee class and read countless beekeeping references.  But all the preparation still didn't prepare me for the moment I popped the lid off of my box of 10,000 bees!

But first, getting them home.  I'd put a downpayment on a "nuc" of bees back in March.  (a nuc of bees cost $99, if you were wondering).  A nucleus is an active hive, scaled down to a small box with 5 frames.  The bees have been living in this hive for a few weeks, so the queen has been laying and the workers have the frames full of honey and pollen to feed the growing brood.  On the scheduled date of April 7th, Maddy and I went to the nursery to pick up our hive.  Being good Portlanders, we of course rode our bike.  Here's our new minivan-sized bike, Maddy, and the nuc:

We put the box in the backyard and pulled the plug blocking the entrance hole and....nothing happened.    But as soon as the sun had warmed up the box, the bees swarmed out and flew in a vortex, accomplishing their orientation flight to get there new bearings.  After an hour of buzzing vortex, the workers were off to investigate the neighborhood, leaving relatively fewer bees in the hive, and it was now the safest time to open the box.  I put on a white shirt (bees stay calm around white) and put on my veil:

I pulled the lid off, and to my pleasant surprise the bees remained happy and busy.  Unfortunately there aren't any pictures of this, since Gretel was holding Juliet and they wanted to stay a bit back from the action.  Trying to cause minimal bee casualties, I carefully transferred the 5 full frames to my first deep box, and added 5 empty frames to fill it out.  On went the cover, and the bees were settled into their new digs:

The unpainted wood is an entrance reduce that closes down the size of the entrance while the hive is still young and small.  This makes the entrance easier to defend in case of raiding by a stronger hive.  Here is a video of the girls in action 5 days later. Be sure to turn on the sound: