Defrost

This picture of Steve, standing on the Greenlandic ice cap, looks cold-too cold for bees-, but is at least: sunny and bright. Steve reports that things at camp are moving along well with a wonderful crew of four. They are preparing for the Summer influx on April 23, when an LC 130 cargo plane will land on the ski way ;delivering fruits and vegetables and people. Steve will leave then, for the coast where the emergence of spring will welcome him . Meanwhile, here in Welcome Valley, spring has sprung! I have been fortunate enough to be able to walk the four miles to the rural bus stop a few times this first week back in school. These early morning wakings allow for me to really notice what kind of an environment I am apart of- as does turning the compost. I notice, not only what is in bloom or what is in bud at the eye level, but observe the delicate castings off of those plants I cannot see in the upper canopy. I pause at the river to watch a beaver swim up current. I listen to the singing of the birds. I loose my breath for a moment as suddenly, where there was none the day before, an ocean of tiny white violets reflects back the dawn. I laugh at robins tugging at worms and I think about nothing.
Yesterday, I received two packages of bees. The packages are wooden shoe - box sized crates, with window screen sides. They contain: a can full of sugar syrup, roughly 10,000 worker bees (females) and a queen, sequestered in a cage of her own, plugged with a cork. My friend Lorena, herself a beekeeper, helped me empty the packaged bees into the hive boxes I had prepared. This is a weird operation for the novice; though I thought I knew what I was doing, I was rather haggard from my first week back at school and a spontaneous, 12 mile hike home the day before - the bus broke down - I was lucky Lorena was there with me. I pulled the syrup can out: bees began to fly. They were loud and sounded angry. I hadn't taped up my wrist cuffs or my pant legs. I didn't wear gloves. The bees crawled on my hands. One went up my pant leg. I remained calm and slowly pulled the queen box out. Lorena brought tiny marshmallows for replacing the cork with- the bees will eat through the marshmallow releasing their queen. I wedged the queen's cage in between the frames in the hive box and then inverted the package of bees over the queen. Then I put the lid on and walked very carefully, like a man with elephantitis (or so I would presume) over to the compost area to release my little companion who did not sting. The second pacakge went smoother, as most things do after dress rehersals.
Today, in between studying and turning the earth, talking on the phone, petting the cat, and ignoring the dishes, I checked on the bees. Honey bees tend not to fly when temperatures are below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Somewhere around 3pm the weather in the valley soared to 52 F. The bees were humming about and settling in; crawling in and out of their respective hives and orienting themselves to our humble estate. I placed extra sugar water jars in the hives along with one pollen patty each; food enough for the bees until the natural nectar bloom becomes sufficient forage.
I did not manage to plant the onion starts or seed potatoes, but the trillium and the rhubarb are up and the old apple tree will be white before the moon is half way gone.