Warm May Weather, Active Bees

I've lived in the Seattle area my whole life, and I can't remember such a long streak of summer-like weather in May. Well, apparently this is the longest rain-free streak in May since 1946 and 1958.

The bees are super-active, as you might guess. Here are two pictures I snapped today, both showing the hive in the backyard. The other hive is located in the side yard, and it's also been plenty busy.

It's been interesting to have two hives to be able to compare and contrast. The bees in the side yard have always seemed more boisterous, something we noticed the day we picked them up. We heard them buzzing as we drove home from Beez Neez, while the other bees were silent. Trish thinks that possibly the side yard bees are sometimes going into the hive of the backyard bees to rob them of some honey, but we can't be sure.

In other bee news, Trish had a look through the observation windows of the backyard hive this morning and was pretty sure she saw some brood emerging from cells of comb. The timing sounds about right: I read that it takes 21 days for a worker bee to hatch.

I wish I could get a picture that shows how you can look up into the air near the hives and watch the bees heading back and forth. They're pretty high up, like 10-12 feet or more, I'd say. There are so many of them flying so quickly on their looping paths. I've compared them to bottle rockets before in a poem, and today they reminded me of stunt pilots.

Buying a Package of Bees

When I first learned that honeybees are sold by the package, this sounded strange to me, as I couldn't make sense of comparing bees to other items that come by the package. I was picturing bees arriving on the doorstep like other brown cardboard boxes that come via UPS or FedEx or the postal service. I've heard that some people do in fact get bees by mail order, but this isn't how Trish orders her bees. She buys her bees from the Beez Neez in Snohomish.

If you're in the greater Seattle area, the Beez Neez is a great place to buy your bees. Trish orders a three-pound package of bees for one of her Warre hives. (They also sell four-pound packages.) The way it works is that you order online ahead of time (they are taking orders now!), and then you get an email notifying you about bee pickup day, which is sometime in April. On that day (well probably the day before), the bees are driven north from California on a big truck and dropped off at the Beez Neez warehouse, where they await pickup.

It's a unique experience to see a crowd of people lined up to get their packages of bees, but that's exactly what you see on bee pickup day. I know because I've been there! It was a little unsettling for me because there were a lot (A LOT!) of bees flying around, but the beekeeper/bee-retailer explained that these were just "hitchhiker" bees who had been attracted by the large number of bees (especially queen bees) all in one place. He brushed the extra bees off the sides of each package before giving it to the beekeeper who had come to pick it up. There were no loose bees in the car or anything like that.

Well, if you ever wondered, "where do you get your bees?" when you want to start a hive, buying a package is a great option. You can also get a wild swarm, which is a whole other story and not something we personally have done. For more about swarms, check out the swarms page on the Urban Bee Project site (also maintained by Seattle beekeepers).