Bee Adventures...

This little cluster of bees was hiding in a barn wall.  I say little.  This space is probably 18 inches wide, 6 inches deep and these girls are hanging down about two feet.  The real problem is that they are about 14 feet up the wall.

 So we needed this...

(Please note there are two hats inside the cab of that tractor.)

Then we strapped on the bee vacuum system and anything else we could think of.

Then we had technical difficulties with the bee vacuum system.  This was such a large swarm that I had decided to use two boxes to vacuum them into.  This was not functional.  The system could not pull enough suction through the hose.  We ended up with an entire hose full of bees.

(I have no idea what we were talking about or why I would be swinging my arms wildly?)

Once we corrected our issue, we were able to get to work.  After removing about half of the bees, we uncovered their handy work.

We were able to remove all the comb and the rest of the bees.  Surprisingly, they were really calm during this process.  Other than the two gentleman that were in charge of the tractor, I had another friend help me out.  She is the one that shot all these lovely photos.  She knows I don't post photos of myself, but she took them anyway.  I think this is payback for the fact that I forgot to mention to her that we would be up in the air about ten feet.

She says she's forgiven me, but at this moment she is probably cussing me all over again.

How Much Can You Trust YouTube?

I previously shared a delivery from my UPS guy.  He was very careful and concerned about this delivery, and it sparked an entire conversation right in the middle of my driveway.

This package contained two complete orders of honey bees.  An order for "packaged" bees contains approximately three pounds of bees plus one queen bee.

Once I had signed off on my delivery, my delivery guy shot off a list of questions...

• Do you have honey bees?
• How many hives do you have?
• Is there a queen bee inside here?
• How do you get them out of here?
• Have you ever been stung?
• Do you wear a suit?
• Do you have honey?
• Do you react to bee stings?
• How many times have you been stung?
• How do you get the queen out?

It really was a funny conversation with a guy that normally throws things on the porch, rings the bell, and is usually speeding out of the driveway by the time you open the door.  

I did my best to answer most of his questions, but when it came to the questions that pertained to this delivery, I was sort of at a loss.  For one thing, I have never ordered "packaged" bees before.  I was hoping that there would be some sort of instructions that came with the package, but as you can see...not so much.  

After he left, I did what most people would do in an instance like this, I logged on to YouTube.

After watching this video, I grabbed all my stuff, loaded my truck because I was setting these bees up at a different location, and drove on down the road.  While making the short trip, I had to stop and think about what I was doing.

When did my life become watching a YouTube video, loading up my crap, and doing what some guy said to do?

What's happened to me?

See What Brown Can Do For You...

You know what I'm talking about.   We've all heard the commercials.  We've all seen the army of brown trucks roaming around our streets.  They move at top speed and a non-stop pace.  Right up until you ask them to deliver something like this...

This package of bees was shipped to me exactly like this.  Except for the fact, this is actually two packages, stapled together.

You can sort of see the shipping label on the top of the box.

This package certainly slowed down my UPS driver.  He very carefully unloaded the package and placed it directly in my hands.  Then he proceeded to ask me fifty-two questions about this particular delivery.