God save the queen!

It is currently Saturday afternoon, the seconds are slipping into minutes, the minutes to hours and I am wide eye-idly awaiting what tomorrow morning will bring. As most of you know by now, I have begun dabbling in the art of keeping bees a privilege of which affords me the opportunity to offer their caramelistic amber deliciousness for a small fee. This I do in a variety of different ways, one of which is to utilize the advertising capabilities of craigslist. I posted my honey on the site, I let the site work its magic, and everyone is happy.

A few days later I was perusing the emails I had gotten in response. One particular piece of mail caught my eye. The title read, "bees in camper". What? First of all, I do not own a camper. And secondly, if I did it wouldn't be very cost effective for me to use it for bees (or organic for that matter). Curious, I clicked open the letter. A gentleman in the area had discovered a large hive of honey bees that had apparently commandeered the side box in his "tag-along camper". He guessed that they had been there 2 years or more, but the "squatters" were unwanted and being served their eviction notice effective immediately. Here is where I come in. He was contacting me to come and "extract the hive".

Let us rewind for just a second or two. I bought bees on line from SC, they are not here yet. Their hive is here, and all set up, but they are having happy little organic dreams somewhere at "The Z man's" farm until May. I searched high and low to find another organic hive with which to meet the needs of a few amazing clients. Some of this honey had already been harvested without me having to have a hand in doing so. Thus buying me a little more time to truly get the craft of extracting the honey down to a science. In layman's terms, and what all this is adding up to is that I HAVE NEVER EXTRACTED HONEY much less a feral hive of bees.

So I politely declined obviously right? Do you still not know me? I immediately started doing the research and watching the videos on how one might chase somewhere in the possible upwards of about 15,000 wild bees from within a confined space. I also sped up the delivery of the necessary gear essential to completing this task. It arrived yesterday. In order for me to make this work, I know one thing is for absolute certain. I HAVE to get the queen. 

You can have 16,000 worker bees in your hive, but all is for naught if you do not have their queen. They will simply, one by one return from whence they came. Studying bees has REALLY brought loyalty into perspective. To keep this hive, I MUST save the queen.

So, bright and early tomorrow morning, (the earlier the better, it's when the bees are least active) I will be making my way to a random camper somewhere on Florida's east coast with my bonnet, smoker and hive tool at the ready. And I will be darned if I do not come home without a hive full of swarming, honey-making little buzzing bundles of joy in the trunk of my car.

Wish me luck. And God save the queen! PLEASE!