bee update

the bees were set to arrive in lexington yesterday at 5:30 pm. so i jetted out of work and pulled into the parking lot right around 6:00. as i pulled in it seemed like the line was deceptively short. and all the cars were in park and not moving at all. so i decided to get out and investigate. first of all, it turns out that the line was so short because i had cut in line. the eta for the bees had been changed to 9 pm, which had caused a lot of people to leave. i had apparently pulled into a gap in the line where people had not moved forward once others had left.

so at this point i had a choice to wait 3+ hours and keep my prime spot in line (which i had stolen anyway), or go home to chill for 2 hours and come back, possibly to wait another hour or so in line again. i decided on the latter, which in the end i really feel was a wise decision. as i was leaving lexington at 6:30 i heard that the drivers had just left the suppliers in south georgia and i knew that it would take them more than 2 1/2 hours to get there.

so at 9:30 pm i pulled back into lexington to find the line grown significantly. no worries, i put on the radio and listed to an old friend on a new-to-me show. it was 1/2 hour later, at 10:00, that the bees arrived. by 10:15 i was inching forward in the line and by 10:45 i had my bees in the back seat and heading home. it was creepy to have them in the car with me, but i knew there was no harm they would do to me. i felt like i had to challenge to myself to ride with them so i could get used to them. it was too late to install them into the hive last night, so i sprayed them down with sugar water to give them something to nibble on and stuck them on the porch. hopefully it won't rain tonight so i can put them in. they can only be in the shipping container for about 2 days tops.

here's a picture that baldman took last night. it shows you how they're clustering around the top where the feeder and the queen are. that cluster is totally thick with bees. there should be about 10,000 bees in there!