Monday, April 23, 2012

30,000+ Pickup

Last Saturday morning at 6am, I was on an express bus on my way to the Union Square Farmer's Market.  Bleary eyed and completely exhausted, I arrived to Union Square around 7:30am. The market was just getting started, vendors were still putting out their goods. And early birds were milling about.  Why was I there so early in the morning... on a weekend no less? 
I walked around for awhile, until I found what I was looking for.  I should have just gravitated towards the large crowd on the Southwest side of the park.  I can't believe I got here early, and I'm already last on line!
What was everyone waiting for, you might ask?  Look in the middle of this photo, do you see it?
Look closer, see it now?  There was much excitement, and camera crews everywhere.  Ahhhh, New York!

Okay, here's a better look.  See it now?  I came to meet our beekeeping teacher, Andrew and the folks at NYCBA.  My other 3 beekeeping partners and I had ordered two packages of bees from them and we were here to pick them up.  My teacher drives down to Georgia to pick up all the Italian honeybees from an apiary there.
Here's a closeup of his truck bed.  Can you imagine driving this truck from Georgia to NYC with a truck full of bees?  He does this trip once a year in the springtime.  Can you imagine what the state police would say if they pulled him over?  LOL.
Here's a photo of some of the bee boxes getting unloaded off the truck.  Each box contains about 10,000 bees.
I love this photo.  My fellow classmate Tom joked that he thought it was pretty funny that the women that was taking the bee boxes out of the truck was not wearing a protective bee suit, yet she was handing the boxes to the guy in the full bee suit.  haha.
The boxes are connected together, so they needed to be cut apart for distribution.
Here's our beekeeping teacher Andrew marking off names off his clipboard as we picked up the bees.  He looked a little stressed out.  There were lots of people there and lots of bees to hand out!
This is what we came to pick up!  Happy, happy bees.  I ended up picking up 3 boxes of bees.  Two packages for us and one box for a friend.  30,000 bees in total!
After we picked up the bees, our teacher and a fellow NYCBA member gave us a demo on how to pour the bees into the beehive.  My next blog post will be about the bee demo.

8 comments:

  1. A bee demo? What are they protesting about?

    I love the photo of the two blokes. It's a real juxtaposition of "correct" and "familiar".

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thats amazing! I would love to have bees but we have too many kids in our neighborhood. Thank you for posting. I am really liking your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love it! But I have to ask... how did you get the bees home? On the express bus... taxi? :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey Mimi,

    What have you planted as far as seeds in your garden, have you sown any yet out there this spring? Im itching to get the green beans and herbs in, I just may do that today.

    -Jes in Chicago

    ReplyDelete
  5. Exciting! I can almost HEAR buzzing while reading this post, and that slight bee-phobia as a child is rearing its head above the BEES ARE AWESOME POLLINATORS mentality that I now claim when seeing a bee. Good luck! Can't wait to see how it turns out! I love that interest in keeping bees is growing! I am grateful for those who are attempting to maintain (or grow!) our current bee population!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Have fun with your new bees.I am always in awe of bee keepers.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow, 30000 bees! I wonder what the driving around does to them - doesn't it psyche them out? Do they get aggressive after a long trip?

    ReplyDelete

We love to hear from you. Thanks for leaving a comment!

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Book Recommendations

ad