Lorraine from the gym drove up in her SUV last week to bring me the bees.  I kind of imagined her arriving with a hive on the back of a pick-up truck the way they were delivered to our orchard when I was a kid.

Some years bee hives would be dropped off in our orchard in the spring for a couple of weeks, then they’d be picked up again.  However, this was done with the prudent use of a pick-up truck.

When I looked into Lorraine’s car I was somewhat relieved to see the bees and hive were actually separate.  The hive wasn’t assembled, and the bees were trapped in a box.  Lorraine and I took the layers of the hive down to my vegetable garden and set them up to build the hive.

Then we returned to her car whereupon she donned the full bee suit.  She grabbed the box of bees and we returned to the hive.  Lorraine opened up the box and began transporting the bees to the hive.  She was hell-bent on showing me the queen, and I kept saying, “Can’t I just imagine it?”

I was several feet away, minus a bee suit, and feeling kind of vulnerable standing there holding the little dog.  He was getting upset by all the bess and when I put him down he beat it up the path toward the house.

Lorraine finally found the queen in the last frame and showed her to me.  At that moment one of the bees flew into my hair, but it was okay as I was able to scream it out without getting injured.  I think I’ll feel a lot better once I own a bee suit.

Lorraine said the bees need water so the next day I took the bird bath down and set it up near them.  She also said they love scented flowers so I raced to the nursery and bought a bunch of alyssum for them.  I planted that around the edge of a tomato bed.

It’s quite wonderful to have the bees, though most people are really stymied by it.  “Why??” is the most common response.  But as with many things in my life, I just explain it away as “probably another hare-brained scheme.”  That usually satisfies them.

But good news!  I’ve sold a dozen packages of chocolate bark to Discover Wines.  This is my first foray into stores with my new product.  I also currently have the bark, as well as some fruitcakes, at the Woman’s Place Gym in their display case for members to buy for Father’s Day.

I finally remembered to tweet today after over a month of not doing it, and I see that it always brings new followers whenever I do it.  I said to Margaret I swear to God I’m going to tweet every single day henceforth even if it kills me.  And, as I read there are only about 5,000 Twitter accounts here in the Okanagan, maybe I can become the tweeting, or more likely the buzzing Queen of the Okanagan.