Honey Flow: N40 Starts Beekeeping
New bee hive set up in Great Falls, MT. May 2015
You know that weird feeling you get when watching a tense part of a movie, or a YouTube video you know isn't going to end well? Yeah, that feeling where you want to yell at the guy jumping his bike off the house and into the kiddie pool? That's the feeling I had the other day when I willingly walked up to a swarm of bees, picked them up and put them in my truck. Pretty sure I haven't been that nervous since 1988 when I went to my first day of Mrs. Grogan's Kindergarten class.
New bee hive set up in Great Falls, MT. May 2015
At first, handling bees seemed like a sketchy sort of business. With less than 24 hours' notice, we met a couple of random guys in a parking lot. They introduced themselves as Mike and Reese, whether or not that was their real name is still in question. Off to the side of their truck were a couple dozen screened boxes of bees. Of course, with 30,000 bees locked up in little cages, there were a few hitchhikers that had made the journey from California on the outside of said screened boxes. I started to duck and weave as they buzzed around us to the amusement "Reese." He kind of chuckled and told me to relax. Then, after looking me over, he said I probably shouldn't be wearing black. "Bees don't like black." So I took off my black coat and he chuckled again. "They don't like red either." I was starting to run out of layers, but luckily under my red plaid shirt was one last white layer!
New bee hive set up in Great Falls, MT. May 2015
The deal had already been paid for so all we had to do was pick a package of bees and head on down the road. Little did "Mike" know I had a lot of questions about all this bee business and little did I know that "Mike" is actually the Mayor of Great Falls! The deal was now starting to get a little less questionable. I quickly got over the shame of not knowing the Mayor of my city and proceeded to ask Mayor Winters a bunch of rookie questions. After a brief round of "Q & A," we rounded up the convoy of N40 vehicles and headed out of town to put our California bees in their new Montana home.
New bee hive set up in Great Falls, MT. May 2015
Usually introducing bees doesn't require two photographers and a social media person, unless of course you work for North 40 Outfitters. In this instance the rookie (me) is usually accompanied by a seasoned pro. Unfortunately we don't have one of those on staff in our marketing department, but we did have a lot of guidance from a local beekeeper. Although he wasn't there with us he did give us a lot of last second pointers before we embarked on our bee adventure. Another great source of information has been from our local bee club. Although I haven't been to a meeting I have kept up with all their questions and experience via their Facebook group. Turns out "Reese" really is Reese and we are both members of the Montana Beekeeping Forum. I guess this bee business really is legit.
Full Local Resource List Here.
The process of introducing bees wasn't nearly as hard as I expected, in fact it was quite easy. The most important part was being organized; we were about half organized. Luckily for us a 5th person showed up who wasn't Tweeting, filming, shooting pictures or deathly allergic to bees. Jacob turned out to be a life saver running around getting things I had forgotten or couldn't easily get to. Have you ever seen a small car full or clowns at the rodeo or circus? Yeah, that basically describes us.
Now the bees are in the hive, Jake avoided the emergency room and North 40 now has an operational bee hive. So why go through all this trouble when there are plenty of bee pictures and videos all over the internet? We wanted to go through this process so we could experience what you would experience as a novice bee keeper. We are passionate about trying new things and encouraging our customers to try new things. Now when we have a conversation with someone in the store, on Facebook, Twitter, etc- we can shoot it to you straight rather than just regurgitating what we read on the internet.
It's not too late to try beekeeping this year, or to tag along with someone that is already beekeeping. This was truly an amazing experience for all of us and one that you would probably enjoy as well. Stay engaged with us and ask questions as we continue to tend to our N40 hive this year.
New bee hive set up in Great Falls, MT. May 2015