The Bees, They Are A-Buzzin'

My life with Will is more adventurous than it would be without him. Take today, for example...we got in the car and drove to Bamberg, SC to pick up a nucleus of bees and an additional queen. To get to Bamberg, you have to get off of 26 around Orangeburg and drive through Bowman and Branchville until you end up at a road that I can't remember the name of. Then you turn off on a dirt road and end up on some land that is filled with blueberry fields and bee hives. I guess this trip wasn't exactly an adventure, but as I played with my phone that had no service and bumped along the dirt roads to meet some guy who we were buying bees from, it did cross my mind that if I never returned no one would even know where to begin looking, mainly because I hadn't talked to my mom and even at now 30 years old, she usually has some idea about my general location on Earth.

Luckily we weren't kidnapped or anything, and the whole thing turned out to be pretty cool. Here are some snaps of Will and the owner of Porter Farm Bees, Dwight. Will's the one in the bee suit since he's super allergic and Dwight is the one handling the bees with BARE hands. He actually got stung, but there's no crying in beekeeping, kind of like baseball. Unless I'd gotten stung. Then, there would've been some crying, wailing to be more exact.







Notice the color of the bee hives. Dwight explained that the hives are just these colors because these are the cheap colors of paint. Makes sense. Good to know there's no other strategy there.



Starting last year with just 6 hives on this land, there are now over 100 hives. Dwight also has hives in Little Mountain and in Easley. It's a full-time, impressive job. He was super smart, and I think if I hadn't been there giving Will the Let's-Go!! look, he would probably still be out there asking questions.

The queen that wasn't in the nucleus will go in one of the hives Will already has. I carried the queen home in my pocket, and we made it safe and sound. She's currently on the kitchen table, just hanging out like queens do.



Here's the bee hive pup, Sadie. She was super sweet.



And just for good measure, and not related to bees in anyway, here's a shot of the ducks.



They've grown. Will left them out in the backyard when we headed to pick up the bees earlier this afternoon. When we got home, they were huddled by the garage door waiting to be let in since they still have a nest box in there with a toasty heat lamp. Silly ducks might actually have brains.