May 8, 2014 The Big Day!

Wow! It was 88 degrees F., muggy, and the warmest day of  Spring 2014. We excitedly headed off to Grandville, MI to pick up our hive of bees from Al Haarsma Apiaries.  There were hundreds of hives at the yard, a bit intimidating, my heartbeat increased by a good 30 beats a minute!  Upon arrival we saw a small group of people also waiting to pick up hives. We had our bee suits in the truck, but no one else had them on so we carefully sauntered up without the suits. There was a low constant humming and a light cloud of bees over the hills side.  Smokers were scattered about  sitting on the tops of hives with white smoke wisping out of them. It was HOT and MUGGY for 8 p.m. at night. We were told to pick out a hive in the front at the bottom of a hill.  We quickly and thankfully donned our suits, as others were beginning to, and spied a hive with bees spread out on the front of it whose hardware looked solid.  I would hate to pick one up that had a rotting bottom board! We smoked the front of the hive and the bees moved like a wave into the entrance. We stopped up the entrance with a piece of cloth.  I was a little worried that it would dislodge and bees would escape, but it stayed.  We used ratchet straps to secure the deep and medium hive bodies together and Wayne (my husband) and I hoisted it on to the back of the pick up truck. We were advised to line the box so frames are parallel to the road in case of a sudden stop, frames would be more stable this way. We had an uneventful ride home, laughing at ourselves because we looked like a haz-mat team going to clean a spill.   Only one confused honey bee had made it into the truck cab with us.  Once home we gently set the bees onto their waiting pallet and removed the cloth from the entrance. Immediately, bees crawled out of the entrance and onto the front and began fanning furiously. They will quickly orient to their new home.

Hives on the opposite side of the hill where we picked up our hive.  

Bees quickly emerge from entrance, fanning and using their nasonov gland which emits an attraction pheromone communicating, "This is home!" My daughter says, "They''re sticking their little butts in the air."

Safely Home!