Today was a good day. An all around, on every front, good day. I caught my first bee swarm. I’ve watched countless videos of people capturing the wild, stumbled-upon swarm of bees. People cut them down from trees or out from under mobile homes and I’ve wonder how it is that people seem to just find swarms randomly and unexpectedly. Then I found one. Mine was a wriggling pool of bees in the grass. I set a Nuk box beside them and in they marched. Free housing with free food and already drawn out comb. Sweet! I hope they stay put.
The whole experience was exhilarating. I was super happy to sit in the middle of the swarm as it buzzed around me.
Last night, as I laid down, I was worrying. Worrying about the litany of things I wasn’t handling well. All those things I felt inept or inadequate to manage. I kept added to the list as I laid in bed. My mind buzzed with it all. Last night I was fearful that I was going to lose my hives. That the bees were all going to zoom away. I lost a newly installed package of bees a week ago and it threw me for a loop. What to do? I ordered a replacement Nuk box. I feared that the replacement had swarmed away too. And the chorus of beeks on the Facebook group was sounding the warnings about my main hive and its impending swarming. They were urging me to split that hive. But I was up against my work schedule and lack time but also did not have a Nuk box to make the split. I went and bought one on my lunch break. Now I have filled that new Nuk with the puddle of bees on the grass. And the original hive? They’ve made a new queen cell.
And so we wait. The honey flow has started. Life is sweet. Today was a good day.