Don’t think the idea of some dead bees can stop me. Yesterday, I called Walter Kelley and ordered the supplies I need to complete my third hive. (I like the people on the phone at Walter Kelley’s; I always pepper them with a million questions, which they humor me to answer in that unhurried Kentucky drawl. And everyone I’ve ever spoken with over there keeps bees).

I’ve decided to plow ahead by adding another colony. Yes, I made some mistakes this year, but how else am I supposed to learn anything, Reader? I was pretty much on my own figuring this stuff out at first, but now I’ve discovered that two of my friends from church keep bees. (Have I told you what a cool church I belong to? I don’t want you thinking these people I’m talking about are typically churchy. They rock. And they’re smart!)

Anyway, these two friends are a year ahead of me with the bees; they live near one another (and not far from me), and they worked a bit together at this stuff last year. Once I discovered they were into it, I latched on to them like crazy…told them they’d be seeing me a lot in the coming years. Good thing I like them both so much.

Unfortunately, Jim’s bees died. But Christy’s are still going strong. Christy has chosen to go the organic route…no chemicals. I’m with her from here on out.

So, today or tomorrow I’ll be getting a big package from Walter Kelley, and then I’ll head down to the basement with my little hammer and those little nails and spend some otherwise cold and dreary January hours putting all the boxes and the little frames with their sweet-smelling beeswax foundations together.

And soon, if I keep adding colonies to our backyard, it’ll start to look like this! (I love this because you can hear the bees sort of getting under the camera guy’s skin…literally.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGsKunJ5y1s