Bees! And a Long Day

My bees are here! They arrived on Monday. My bee buddies were good enough to pick them up and bring them to my farm. The bees were shipped to a bee company in Wisconsin. They come in a wooden box with screened sides. I ordered three pounds of bees which equals about 3000 bees plus one queen. The queen is in a smaller box with screens so that the bees can get used to her smell and won't kick her out of their group, which is apparently what they do if you just dump a random queen into a colony.

So we set up my hive and kicked out the mouse that had made its nest in there. Rotten mice. Stay out of my bee hive! We set the frames in the hive, set the queen in her mini box in the hive and then dumped, seriously dumped, the bees into their hive. We put some sugar water in there for them to eat, set the lid on top, and that was it. I've been keeping my eyes on them today and their buzzing around getting used to their new home. In a couple days I'll check on them, see if they need more food, and make sure the queen is out of her box and moving around. If you're lucky some day I'll post a picture of me in my kickass bee suit. :)

The adventure today was spend as much time in the fields as possible to get as much done as I can before the rains come (again!). My morning began at 6 when I hopped into the seat of the John Deere tractor and headed out to till up a large part of my fields and prepare the beds for the afternoon planting. Field beds are rows grouped together. My beds are about 4.5 ft which includes a walkway. In that bed I can plant three rows of spinach, 2 rows of broccoli or 1 row of tomatoes. Each crop prefers different distances. Some need a lot of room, others don't need so much.

I had a great crew of helpers this afternoon. We planted a ton of stuff, mostly my bulb onions. We planted yellow, red and sweet onions. Then we planted a rainbow of lettuces. By that time the crew was ready to call it a day. We were all proud of what we had accomplished. They took off, but I wasn't ready to call it quits yet. Rain's a'comin and I don't know when I'll get back in the fields. So worked for another hour or so. I called it quits when the sun did.

Not bad for my first long day. I'm in a pretty good mood, mildly sore, but I definitely don't feel beat up. That will happen in July or August I'm sure. That's it for now! Praise God for great help and beautiful weather.