I'm covered in bees!!!

This is my favorite Eddie Izzard sketch, if you'll take a moment:

And this is me, acting out said sketch in the flesh as I install my first package of bees:

A moment on the bee costume. It is terrible. If you take on the life of a novice beekeeper you'll also look like me. Donning my bee suit, I am the love child of Apple's all-white marketing scheme and a rogue Oompla Loompa. Then as the years go by, maybe you'll end up looking more like my bee mentor, Don Studinski of Honey Bee Keep. The most protection I've ever seen Don wear is a veil...which works as a magical bee repellent when paired with the most spectacular collection of hipster t-shirts west of the Mississippi.

Someday you may decide to interact with your bees wearing the same amount of protection that a trip to the grocery store requires. When I bought a replacement queen for my package bees (more on that later this week), Tim Brod of Highland Honey Bees opened his hive like it was filled with puppies and got stung on the eyelid - the eyelid, people! - and barely took note.

Despite my lame attire and the inherent ouchie factor (Who has toddlers? I do!), I love the bees. Two hives and three weeks in, and I am enamored with their teamwork and sacrifice. Their housekeeping skills would put all but my Grandma to shame. They are fuzzy, industrious, and delightful.

The package bees are on the right and I named them the Grand Girls (from Apis Hive and Honey Co. in Grand Junction), and my Colorado local nuc from Honey Bee Keep came with the name Cherokee 13.1, since the original colony was a captured swarm from Cherokee Street and this is the first 2013 split.

The colonies and my experiences with them are already so different. The Grand Girls, the Cherokee Girls, the chickens and I are going to have an interesting summer to say the least!