Beehives.

Krista and I waited a full 24 hours after picking up our Beauties to hive them. They stayed cozy in Krista's coat closet, remaining calm and cool. Then yesterday at dusk we suited up and took the bees to the hives.

All The Littles were so excited to see us in our bonnets and garb, but mostly they wanted to see the queens and their crowns (such darlings!).

The process is this: Pull sugar water can out of transport box and cover opening with a board. Then while covering hole, simultaneously slide queen box out of hole without letting out the colony. Once the queen is out, replace cork holding queen inside queen box with two marshmallows then hang queen box on a straightened out paperclip and hang between two frames. Next pour colony on top of frames holding queen (really need a spatula for this part), make several hard taps to knock bees out of box (they really don't like this) and then once most bees are out, cover hive with lid. The left over bees in transport box will eventually find their way out.

Hutters, hiving bees is intense. Think liquid bees. Keeping your cool while the bees are loosing their shit to get to the queen and figure out where home is disarming. Yes, it's chaos and though we spoke in quiet tones and moved slowly, my brain was like a fire alarm, blaring. What a rush!

In a few days we will suit up again in order to see what progress has been made. By then the worker bees should have eaten through the marshmallows to release the queen and also started work on the honeycombs.