I helped hive packages today

[oldenglish]

Today I met up with Chef Isaac to hive some packages at his two yards, there were others helping but I am really bad with names, sorry. We got a real break in the weather, friday we had snow, today it was in the 70's
This was my first ever real contact with live bees and I have to tell you I had a blast. First chef showed us what he wanted us to do then basically let us at it. I kinda lost count but figure between the two yards I did maybe 6 packages, plus I showed one young girl (about 13 ?) how two do it and she did two herself. Between the group we took lots of pictures and I will post some here over the next day or so, too tired right now.
Chef is a really nice guy, as is his partner Jason, I hope many of you get to meet him.
One of the yards was the one he lost to the flooding, kinda hard to describe but the flood pictures he posted do not really convey how high the water had to get to flood in the first place.
After we were done chef took us all out to lunch which was really nice, to top it off he gave me 3 packages so now instead of starting with two next week I had to rush home and make up some sugar water, I should be hiving these tomorrow.... Thankyou Chef.

ok one picture tonight,


One more, sorry on the quality I was using a camera phone.


Little fun note, I believe there was 8 helping out in total and only one person got stung.........chef Isaac :)

[JP]

I always thought the chef was a cool cat, and he took a sting for the team! Thanks for sharing.


...JP

[Brian D. Bray]

I always thought the chef was a cool cat, and he took a sting for the team! Thanks for sharing.


...JP

And generous to boot, our kind of guy, good going Chef.  I hope to meet up with you some day.  If any of you in NW Washington have a couple of yours to spare come on by and I'll show you how green you can get on  1 1/4 acres.  Ask Oldenglish he's seen it. 

[oldenglish]

I hived my packages tonight, first one was pretty text book, direct release of the queen into the cluster, second one was almost as easy, the queen was a little slow leaving the cage but she did and appeared to disappear into the cluster. The 3rd was my TBH, on this one the queen decided to fly a little, the urge to swat her down to the cluster was huge but I resisted, she never went more than 6 inches from the top of the hive and after a few seconds landed on the cluster and blended right in. I then just sat there and watched them for about an hour or so, cleaning out the feed bucket, fanning the entrance, everything looked normal as far as I could tell.
I will check feed again tomorrow but not open up the hive, as they are all foundationless I am going to give them some time before I let curiosity get the better of me. Pics coming to my blog soon.

[Irwin]

Good for you Oldenglish :)

[Chef Isaac]

It was nice meeting up with you too Old!

I love helping people out. We all need to get together for a BBQ.

[oldenglish]

It was nice meeting up with you too Old!

I love helping people out. We all need to get together for a BBQ.

Always up for a good BBQ, just let me know if you ever need an extra pair of hands, I thoroughly enjoyed helping out.