The first semi arrived safely at 2:00 this morning. Our driver promptly went to sleep and I went back to sleep for 2 hours. At 4:00a.m., Katherine, my future daughter-in-law, and myself started taking straps and nets off of a very cold load of bees. It was 36 degrees, which is 60 degrees cooler than the bees had been used to the previous week in Florida. It did make for quick and quiet work, we didn’t even need to put our vails on. By the time the sun came up, the semi was empty and we were out the drive with 4 bee yards of hives on our truck.
I’m always tickled by the jubilation our land owners exhibit when they see the bees arrive. They really do enjoy having hives for the summer and think of them as their own. Over the weekend, we put the apple orchard bees out and in place. The bees were working dandelion heavily these past several days, but not apple as they have not opened up yet until this morning.
I haven’t heard otherwise, so I believe all of our customers have successfully installed their nucs. The weather was very chilly Saturday morning, so most installation probably didn’t take place until Sunday or Monday. That was fine as the the nucs came up with plenty of gallberry honey as have our splits. So much honey have our splits that we will need a 6th semi this year for the first time in a long time, weight is going to be a factor. The splits and nucs in Florida are packing out every open cell with gallberry honey right now and gaining pounds per day. It’s a nice problem to have and the honey is easily made, but the timing could have been better. On top of all the caging and splitting and moving the boys are doing right now to get ready each week for another semi, they have to extract several barrels of holly and gallberry honey to give the queens room to lay and to make the hives light enough to transport.
I had a great trip up with my friend Randall Lamons as a co-driver with the nucs and apple bees. We had no problem keeping each other awake as we enjoyed telling and listening to each other’s stories. Our travel was uneventful except for excessive heat and long delays in construction in Atlanta and Chattanooga (to be expected this time of year). We’ve been selling nucs like this for 16 years, and I am always the one behind the wheel to get the nucs to Wisconsin. I enjoy the trip, meeting the customers, and receiving the first semi-loads of bees for the summer here in Wisconsin. But the one thing that always happens, and I really regret, is that for most of these 16 years I have not been able to spend Mother’s Day with the best mother in the world, my wife, the mother of our children.
Becky, I am in awe of you, you are a Proverbs 31 woman, gracious and lovely. I’m so blessed to have you as my wife and you are more than worthy of the mantel “best Mom”, you are also my best friend. I’m sorry I can’t be there this Sunday, but you know we have to do what we have to do. I love you