Happy Mother's Day

A new mother's first mother's day...a bouquet of flowers, a stack of pancakes on an elegant tray in bed, and a clean house she need not life a finger for...or, alternatively, a new rooster, a giant box of bees, and gardening dirt on every surface. Winter and I know how to do it right!

Chuck is away on business for a couple of days, so Winter and I are holding the fort. We gardened yesterday in our raised beds and at the community garden, with the help of some friends. Winter loves digging her hands in dirt. Loves it.

Then we went to pick up a box of bees that had arrived from Connecticut earlier in the day. A package of bees weighs about three pounds and contains about 10,000 bees. Yes, 10,000. Since the weather was turning bad, we put the package in the basement, where I sprayed them with delicious sugar syrup and they buzzed in irritated thanks.

The next day we went to pick up Manny. Manny needed a new home because he was sharing a coop with another (giant) rooster and only eight ladies, which is about the minimum for one rooster. There was a little tension, and quite a few missing feathers, but the family that owned Manny really wanted him to have a new home instead of being soup. He is about 18 months old. We are not sure what breed he is, but I am trying to find out. He is a very handsome rooster, and hens are all atwitter (not that it takes much to set hens atwitter). He settled in pretty much immediately.

In the afternoon, our neighbor came over to help me install the bee package into the hive. This involves setting up the hive, opening the bee package, removing the Queen and her attendants in their cage and placing them in the hive, and then placing the rest of the bees in the hive. Note that "placing" bees sounds much calmer than it actually is. There is lots of spraying, shaking, thumping, and dumping. When our neighbor arrived, she asked her if I was nervous. I said yes, a little, and she said "good. you should be."

I suited up and placed the bees as best I could. They seemed to be finding their way when I checked in on them later this evening, and were guzzling their bee feed, which is 1:1 sugar water. The most disturbing part is that when you are suited up in a bee suit, bees directly outside the face veil are so close that your vision kind of records them as maybe actually being inside the veil. Some deep breaths and carefully controlled thoughts help with that.

The Queen's exit to the hive from her cage is blocked with a marshmallow- by the time it is eaten through, her scent has mingled with the hive and they accept her as their queen rather than an enemy bee. That only takes one marshmallow, so next Winter and I made rice krispy treats.

All in all, a pretty good mother's day. Happy mother's day to all the mothers we know!