I’ve gotten a number of calls the last week or two from folks asking if it’s too late to get bees this year. Although some package bee suppliers have stopped taking orders, there are several more that are still taking them. In fact, some lower 48 suppliers ship to Alaska clear into May! I personally wouldn’t recommend waiting past April 1st, but even after that, if you are diligent, you can likely hunt down a package of bees. Feel free to let me know if you end up in that situation, and I’ll see what I can do to help you out.
I’m still taking orders for equipment as well. I make everything your bees need from the ground up. I take pride in my equipment and I stand behind it! I will have a few extras on hand throughout the summer, but if you’re planning on ordering, and haven’t done so yet, I’d appreciate a heads up. My packages will arrive April 16th, and I’ll need some time to get my outyards set up. Last year I had 2 people pick up bees from me that hadn’t ordered equipment yet. Not from me, not from anywhere! Just so we’re all clear, that IS NOT OK! Bees don’t enjoy hanging out in those screened boxes, they want out! You need to be prepared to hive within a day or two of receiving your package at the most. Try to be ready to go before your bees show up, and hive them as soon as possible! With our short summers, they need every spare minute to prepare themselves for the incredible Fireweed Bloom!

It’s getting to be that time of year again…. The summer of 2010 was depressing to say the least. Not a drop of honey was collected for all my (and the bees) efforts, but here in Alaska, you gotta expect those endless weeks of rain….I wouldn’t really mind that, but I’d prefer it happened in, say, February….? Please? Just not during the Fireweed bloom! It’s been quite a chilly winter here. I keep telling myself I have nothing to complain about when it’s above zero! Once we hit 10 or 15 below, I must admit I grumble a tad.  Winter is halfway over now, and the days are getting longer. Sunshine feels like it’s burning a hole in my retinas, the ridiculous but true and telltale sign of  January. I’m trying hard not to get spring fever. That’s a tempting but dangerous thing to do this time of year. We’ve got a ways to go, and I’ve got a lot to do! Package bees are really just right around the corner! Well, okay, that might be a stretch, but with my to-do list, I best start burnin the midnight oil now!

I’ve got just a few more deadout’s to clean up. Only 3 of my hives from last year remain alive, unfortunately. That’s where winter comes in kind of handy. Those that perished sit in a stack outside my garage door, waiting in “cold storage” for me to find the time to clean them up. It’s much easier to pick em clean when they’re frozen. Still, it’s a sad and arduous task. I can’t tell you the countless hours I’ve spent with needlenose tweezers picking dead bees and brood out of comb. Enough that this time of year, it haunts me in my dreams……. Those frames of drawn comb are literally worth their weight in gold! The less work the package bees have to do upon their arrival in April, the better, and comb-building requires much more resources than sweeping out and dusting off the already drawn comb.

There I go again, thinking about Spring…….and bees….and honey. Guess I better get back to my tweezers…………

Have you ever seen an observation hive? It’s a vertical hive with plexiglass walls. You can watch the workers bring in pollen and daintily scrape it off their hind legs into a cell, see the queen lay eggs, watch brood hatch out, all the things that you just don’t get to see in a regular hive. They are really, really cool! I have a 3 frame observation hive that I keep in the middle school science class. It’s always my favorite to fill with bees, there is nothing on TV as good as “The Bee Channel”. The 5th graders ALWAYS want to come watch the bees and find the queen. This year, to make it easier, I decided to mark the queen. This consists of getting the queen out of her cage in to a “queen marking tube” and putting a dot of paint on her thorax. Sounds easy enough, right?

I had everything I needed at hand, I thought…………The key thing I didn’t remember to do was to Duck tape my pantlegs to my boots. As soon as I dumped the package of bees into the observation hive, I remembered! There were plenty of bees in the air, and on the deck….and on my boots. Not a big deal, really. Continuing the job, I shook the package empty, and as the loose bees began to make their way towards their fanning sisters, I picked up the queen in her cage, ready for marking. Feeling utterly confident in my skills, I opened the queen-marking tube, and popped the cork out of the queen cage. BZZZ!!! And, oh crap! She was gone! I looked on the deck at my feet, searching through the dozens of bees crawling around. No queen. I began checking the arms of my suit, the bees on the bench, the railings…..No queen. I coulda kicked myself. Continuing the search, I poked through the deepest clusters in the hive itself, No queen. Back to the crawlers on the deck, the side of the house, No queen. About this time, my 8 year-old peeking through the sliding glass door said “Hey Mom, there’s a bunch of bees on your back!” I turned to look at my reflection in the door. Sure enough, there was a baseball-sized cluster of bees on my back! I knew immediately where the queen was! Awesome, right? Not really. I tried turning my jacket sideways far enough to reach the cluster, but it wasn’t happening. My options for queen retreival were pretty limited. With a disgusted sigh, I grabbed my jacket by the shoulders and gave it a good hard shake. The cluster fell, with about half the bees going into the air. Now I was back at square one, looking for the queen.

It was about this time that I really missed that Duck tape. BZZZZ! Those bees on the deck? They were crawling onto my boots, and right inside my pantleg! I began my comical “get the hell outta there” leg shake, much to the amusement of the kids watching from inside. Trying not to step on any bees, knowing the queen was again MIA, I shook a couple more out of my pants before pulling up my pantleg and scraping the stinger off. As the fire set in to my leg, I began my search again, and within seconds, saw the queen on the deck, inches from my boot. Yay! I scooped her into the marking tube, and primed the marking pen. About this time, I started to feel a familiar heat and burn in my ears…….Anaphylaxis. Quickly, I dotted the Queens thorax with white paint and unceremoniously dumped her into the hive, slamming the door. Getting dizzy and nauseous, I continued the bee-leg shake and took off my gloves and veil as I hurried back into the garage. Ahh, liquid (AKA fast-acting) Benadryl. I chugged straight from the bottle, a dose (or three?) and sat down. Updating the kids on what happened, I retreived my Epi-Pen, hoping to not have to use it. By this time, the boys, (10 and 11) were in the truck honking. They were going to drive me in my 5-speed mazda the 12 miles to the hospital! Hahaha, um, no, but Thank you! I told them that if need be, we’d just call 911. I’m not the kinda girl that calls 911. Sitting back down with my Epinephrine close at hand, I began the “C’mon, Benadryl” chant. The boys stood in front of me and helped me scratch my head, which felt like it was in an ant hill. So far, so good, no trouble breathing……sore throat, but not swelling profusely yet. My eyes were burning, swelling and itching. C’mon, Benadryl. The boys discussed proper technique and placement of the Epi-Pen should I happen to fall over, and did “rock, paper, scissors” to see who would get to give me the shot, and who got to call 911 as they continued scratching my head. C’mon, Benadryl. I could feel it starting to kick in, and knew I’d be okay. Within a few more minutes, my head stopped itching, although my eyes felt like I’d been in a firefight. Somewhat to their dissappointment, I told the boys we weren’t going to be needing either the shot or 911. Time to get back to work……. Checking to make sure there were no bees still on my jacket, I put it back on, and retreived the observation hive. Bringing it inside, and shucking my jacket again, the kids were lined up wanting to see the queen with her white dot. Hmm, no queen on this side……no queen on the other side….What the heck? Did she fly away AGAIN? I was sure I got her inside! Then I saw her…….Bees were packed tight against the plexiglass, in a big tight knot around her. They hadn’t accepted her as their queen yet, and were basically suffocating her. I could see her abdomen squished up against the glass, and she was unable to move with the workers balling her. ARGH!! Still feeling fairly lousy from the sting reaction, and quickly getting very tired from the Benadryl, I put my jacket back on, and ran out the backdoor with the observation hive. Opening the door to the hive, I picked up that whole cluster of bees, and began flicking angry workers off the queen. They were pretty persistent, but I managed to get her back inside her cage. The poor thing was shaking and breathing heavy, but alive! The cage itself went in the hive this time, guess those 5th graders will just have to wait a few more days to see her!

All’s well that ends well, right? I went to bed with a half-inch thick welt on my now super-sized leg, feeling pretty darned lucky overall!

1 package hived, 22 to go……stay tuned!

Once again, package day has come and gone. Although we got home with all the bees safe and sound, it was not without entertainment! As usual, I overextended myself, and stayed up all night long the night before. Unable to turn down those extra equipment orders, and wondering if the neighbors were bothered by the sound of the saws and planer running all night, I kept at it! My wire embedder took a nose dive at about 4am, and I had to keep unplugging it for a few minutes after every single wire. Considering there were had 70 frames with 4 wires apeice, I was not a happy camper. I did get them all done in time to leave, but just barely.
There was a “severe winter storm” warning for Turnagain Pass. This is not the kind of weather to be traveling in with a Suburban full of bees and no sleep! We crossed our fingers and prayed for a safe trip. Brandon had gotten a solid 3 hours of sleep, so he volunteered to drive. I snuggled up in the passenger seat with a blanket and kicked off my boots. The 90 minutes I slept was pure bliss! Then the phone calls started in………..
“Sarah, where are my bees?” “What time will you be back in town?” “Have you left Anchorage yet?” and of course the requisite “Mom I got in trouble at school again”.
By the time we got to the cargo transfer docks, my ear was sweaty and I was just a tad bit cranky. Thankfully, the bees were ready to be loaded up when we arrived. Eighty-four 4 pound packages to be exact. With an average 5,000 bees to a pound, we were pushing 2 million stingy critters who had enough traveling. There didn’t seem to be too may “fliers” loose, but as we chatted before pulling out of the parking lot, there seemed to be quite a few loose bees coming out the windows of the Suburban. As we pulled out onto the street, I turned around to take a peek, hoping to see the rest of the fliers heading out the windows. No such luck. What I saw instead was a cracked open package with bees pouring out a dozen at a time. As ridiculous as this may be, Brandon and I are both allergic to bees. I muttered an expletive or two, and told Brandon to pull over, and get out quick! Donning my gloves and veil, I climbed in the back and performed yet another Duck tape miracle. On the road again, with all windows down to let the fliers out, we got quite a few odd looks! Brandon graciously drove for me, so I could start returning  phone calls to expectant beekeepers. Although we were thankful that it wasn’t snowing, it would have been nice to not have pounding rain and high winds! We made it safe and sound, and by the time we got to our first drop-off point, there was quite a group of people waiting for us! I never charge beekeepers in my area for the delivery of their bees to the peninsula from Anchorage, but most of them chipped in on my gas, which was really nice! The packages were in excellent condition, and everyone was happy. By the time we got home, Brandon and I were more than ready for bed! No such luck though. I still had nearly 50 packages, only 23 of which were mine. As the beekeepers flooded my garage, I handed out packages and tried to answer questions coherently without falling asleep mid-sentence. Beekeepers are a chatty group of people, and by the time they all left, I was whipped!
Now the sawdust on my garage floor has been replaced by package bees patiently waiting to be hived, scattered assorted beehive parts, and sticky sugar syrup used to spray the packages down. There is a consistent buzz that is a little unnerving, and that unique sweet pheremone smell that almost promises a prosperous summer season….

Got another equipment order out today…whew! Now just a few more to get together, and set up new hives in the outyards. Package bees will be here in less than 3 weeks! It’s seriously crunch time folks, I’ve been short on sleep a lot lately. This time of year, though, that’s OK! It’s time to get ready for summer. Spring is definitely here, more than half of my driveway is finally visible; although my picnic table still has several feet of snow on it. I really meant to get a new smokehouse built this winter, but it’s still on my very crowded mental list of projects that need my attention, and will most likely get pushed to my nexts winter’s project list. The old one’s got another season in it pretty easy with a little TLC. Time to get in some Razorclams before the tourists show up, and eat the rest of last years fish before the Sockeye’s start running. This summer is gonna rock!

My house is a disaster. My garage is a disaster. I have unfinished projects everywhere I turn – and I don’t care. Packages come in T-Minus 29 days – Every minute I can spare is spent in the garage. There are stacks of unassembled equipment in every corner, and lists of things that still need to be made. I pause only to cook and toss in another load of laundry. I’m considering moving the coffeepot from the kitchen to the garage. My kids are amused at my obsession, and helping out wherever they can. Jeremy, my 7 year old cooked me a frozen pizza and delivered it to the garage with an air of importance, enjoying playing delivery man. Yes, I tipped him, but he was happy with a quarter, as opposed to the real “pizza dude”. He was a bit worried about me ingesting sawdust, but I’m unconcerned. I know I’ve eaten worse, and considering that I have sawdust EVERYWHERE else, I doubt it will make much difference.

This time of year, although hectic, is a time of excitement and hope. Soon the bees will be in their new home, adjusting to the climate change, and flourishing in our breathtakingly beautiful Alaskan summer. The sawdust will be swept away, and other projects will take their place. Here’s to Spring!