Oh. So that's what bees are supposed to do.

You perhaps remember my bee adventures of yore. If not, please avail yourself of my retelling and also the horrific video in which I am hilarious in most every sense of the word.

Now, anyway. Now it seems hilarious in the funny way, but I can tell you 100% for sure that when this happened I was only hilarious in the crazy SOMEONE RESTRAIN ME way.

Good times.

And I've thought back many times since to the innocent How To Hive Your Bees flyer that came with my package bees wondering who gets to have a hive install like the one they so whimsically outline in the flyer.

It even says, "Enjoy your hive!" at the end as though you just assembled a dollhouse rather than just having wrestled 10,000 stinging insects and their flighty lady leader into a box.

Seemed a little off to me, is what I'm saying. And kinda mean, frankly. Like they were off in Perfectly Behaved Bee Land being all, "What do you mean you have bees swarming all over your yard and face? We've never heard of *that* happening. You must have done something stupid."

Though they'd have been right. I did do many somethings stupid that first time. And then I did some other stupid stuff with the bees and then, last week, I did it all right.

Or so it would seem based on the very orderly and well behaved manner of my new package of bees.

I LOVE THESE FREAKIN' BEES.

Seriously.

They're so damn mellow that using a smoker is, so far anyway, totally optional. Even when wearing flip flops and shorts and bare hands like was necessary today because it's 92 degrees in April WHAT THE FUCK. 

These super well behaved angel bees went into their hive without error and emerged single file in the early morning hours to commence pollen harvesting. No extreme crowding at the small entry in the entrance reducer (fancy name for the stick with a hole in it that blocks out all but enough space for a few bees at a time), no swarming all over the fence or stinging the dog or buzzing Bubba as he went about his business in the garage and no taking years off of my life by acting like a bunch of dive bombing psychos.

And then today I went in there to replace the one frame that I had to leave out when I installed the package to make room for queen and found that - yay - the queen has been released from her cage, they're drawing out comb and would you effing look at that they're storing nectar and pollen like proper ladies.

Also, they made this where the 10th frame was supposed to be, so apparently they're about this whole hive building thing.

Which I like. TONS.

I'm leaving it out there so they can reharvest all the nectar they stored away. Which is why it's sitting there all perched against the hive weird. If it's not all melted down the side when they're done, I can save it and maybe make some more lip balm out of it or something.

I'm just excited that in an effort to start my hive anew this year that I didn't take an additional 10 years off of my life in the process. Because that first hive install and ensuing madness knocked me back a decade at least.