I am going to raise Bees...

At about the age of 12 I discovered the stories or should I say the adventures of Sherlock Homes.  That came about after one of the kids at school had "No shit Sherlock" to something I had said.  Within a few hours one of my brothers friends had a book of Sherlock Holmes stories.  I ask him about it and he lent me the book.  It was wonderful and that was from a kid that would do almost anything than read a book.

I now have book, video tapes and CDs of adventures of Sherlock Holmes.  In a few of the stories when Sherlock was down and not able to find a good case to work on he would state that he was going to retire to Wales and raise Bees.   I have used that as one of my own sayings for years.  It always got the "are you crazy" glance.

Well now that I am officially retired I have gotten a bee hive.  My wife was at first not to keen on the idea.  She is a master gardener and like the bees for her garden but I thought she thought I was a bit crazy. 8-)

She now is as much or more thrilled about them as I am.  It was not as easy or as hard to get started with bees as I thought.  We went to a local bee keeping association first.  I went to the library and got a how to keep bees book and found plans on making a hive.  Being cheep  frugal, I built my first hive box.  One of the persons I met at the bee meeting was a old guy, a little older than me that, that said he new of a swarm we could get for the box.  FREE!  That fit my price range.  8-)

With my bee box and the gloves, hive tool, veil, smoker and bee brush I met him and he took me to a old house that had a bee swarm in the wall of the house. This old guy in flip flops, shorts and a old shirt went right up to wall and with an electric saw cut a hole in the side of the old house where the bees were.  He smoked them a bit but that was it.  He had me cut a few more boards out ( Me fully covered with long pants with legs taped closed, veil, gloves, long sleeve shirt) Once the bee combs were exposed, he cut brood comb from the nest and put it in my hive box.  With no protection he scooped bees out of the hive with a large red Solo Cup and we dumped them in the hive box.  He said each cup full was about 500 bees. I lost count after 5 cups. He said if he had gotten the queen in the box the rest of the swarm would move into the box. He smoked the nest in the wall to help get them to move to the box.  He then said we could come back at night fall when all the bees were in the box, plug up the door opening, strap the top to the hive and take them to my house.

That was my first adventure with bees.  The swarm size was about the  35000 size and the box made a nice humming sound when we moved it. I was a bit on guard driving home with the bees in the back of the truck.  I also was sharing the cab of the truck with about 4 or 5 bees.  I left them alone and they left me alone. 

The cops often set up a speed trap on the road to our house.  I though it would have been fun for a cop to pull me over and ask whats in the box.

We now have 2 hives.  I can see why Sherlock Holmes wanted to raise bees.  The old crazy bee guy...I really like him!!!