Bee hive moving gone wrong

So, my Dad calls to inform me that he was just given two "established" bee hives. All we have to do - is move them home. OK, I say. We will just go over to the hives (at night),  put a screen on the front of the hive, so the bees won't fly out, pick them up, put them in the truck and drive home. That will be easy...right!?

Wrong!

After dark, Dad and I head over to the hives. Only to find the hives in the middle of weeds & metal junk, buried in the ground,  with five supers on them.  So we make our way over to the hives, shine our light on them, and get the metal screen on the front entry. Then bees start pouring out from the back and side of the hive, it's  rotten! The bees are flying around us in every direction. I get more screen and try to patch the holes. We then proceed to try to pry the bottom board of the1st hive out of the dirt using a fence post that was lying on the ground. We get our hands under the hive and lifted. Heavy! Very Heavy! But that doesn't bother us. Only the bees, and they are mad. Very mad.

They find a hole in my veil and start attacking my face then they're
crawling up my pant leg and attaching their stingers to my leg. Ouch!
Finally, we get the hive in the back of my truck. Dad was running halfway

down the road shouting at the bees. It was a crazy bee dance we both

had going. Dad didn't zip his veil and the bees flew right in. He was throwing his clothes off as fast as he could and I was pulling stingers out of my neck
and leg.

Did I mention we are doing this in the dark? And our flash light is now
dead!? It's dark and the 1st beehive is barely sitting on the back of my
tailgate, and we still have the 2nd one to load.

So, we put our bee suits back on, and proceeded to do the whole process
again. The crazy bee stinging dance was not any more fun the second time
around. Exhausted, we pushed the hives in the truck and slammed the tailgate
shut. Done! We pulled out more stingers, then got in the truck to drive
home.

As we were leaving, I hit a bump and the hives leaned over, over and then
back up. We forgot to strap them in! So out we went.  Strapped down the
hives, only to be stung again. The bees were mad, and I'm thinking we must
have done something wrong. This was our 1st bee rodeo.
Finally, we get back in the truck to drive home. Once there, we decide to
park the truck with the hives in the back - in the middle of the field and
leave. We had more than enough excitement for one night.
I get home share this story with my husband. Reminicing, we sit down with
fresh sourdough bread with lots of Hiland butter and smothered on the HONEY.

 I win! No matter how bad it is, enjoying the sweet honey is always worth it!



Bee hive super



Carrots in April?





Spring is here and I can wait to get in the garden. But with gardeing comes pulling weeds, yes already, weeds, Ellie and I started pulling the chickweed, and henbit and other strange looking weeds. We thought, the weeds looked liked carrots tops but it could not be, because we have not planted any yet. Ellie pulled the weed up, and a big carrot came out of the ground. I planted carrots last spring, I guess they are slow to grow.

Had a great salad for dinner fresh carrots and onions. Now all I need is for my tomatos to grow. I ran out of feta cheese so I used mozzarella on top, it was great. I love the taste of spring!



Garrett eating carrot from our April garden











Ellie & Garrett at Annual Dairy Farmers of America meeting



The Dairy Ruminator

This is Sheila's first blog post!

Hello I am Sheila  a wife mother and outdoors women. 
www.midwestdairy.com