Tomorrow is it. The bees will be ready for pick up. I am both excited and nervous. When I took the U of M's Beekeeping Short Course, we went over hiving the package of bees several times and even watched a video. The instructors told us that we did not really need the gloves because the bees will be so docile, but if it will make us more comfortable we should wear the full suit. I was thinking I would probably do it glove free since they made it look so easy in class.

Then I foolishly went to YouTube tonight and watched some bee installations going wonky.

At first it freaked me out, one video in particular showed some very angry bees, but then I started to pay attention. First thing I noticed was that in all the videos where things went wrong, the people were wearing full bee suits. Second, they were doing things very differently than what I learned in class. I did find one video where the guy was "hiving a package" with no bee suit and it went fairly smooth. He put the queen in the hive a different way than I learned but everything else was about the same and all was calm.

I don't think I'll be getting much sleep tonight. I haven't been anyway, partially because our neighbors stay out until 4 am having a party (college kids, who swear they are being quiet when you walk over and tell them they're being noisy). The other night someone was in the ally arguing with her boyfriend Josh, on her cell phone. I woke up to "Josh, Josh! I don't want to #$%^*&@ loose you!" I looked at the clock and it was 2:45 am. She cried out again to her Josh on her cell about trying to work out their differences, when I heard a robin stir. It gave it's "reep cheap cheap" and then started a full on territory song. After he got going, other males on neighboring territories started to sing and by 3:05 am all the neigborhood robins were in chorus. Good grief, that lady woke up the birds!

Once birds start singing, I just can't sleep. I'm too programed to pay attention to them.