Wow, my post "19- I'm Baaaack!" has 100 views! I'm thrilled that 100 people are curious enough about my journey to look. Thank you all for participating!

After my Facebook post I was contacted by several people, one of which was Jim McMahon. I didn’t realize at the time that Jim was/is not only a leader in the Treasure Valley Beekeepers Club, but also an educator.

He lives in a beautiful home in Eagle and has made his shop into a place to teach aspiring beekeepers from different programs. He also works with people who have PTSD since beekeeping has shown to be helpful with managing the disorder.

What a perfect “first time back” pick!

He was so kind, informative, and gracious to host. I just love Beekeepers!

Here’s a shot of part of his apiary:

After he gave me a tour of his shop and several beekeeping lessons, 2 other people arrived to help. One man who has worked with Jim for years and seemed quite knowledgeable about bees, and his sister who had never been around bees before but was there and ready to work.

Our goal for the day was to install 5 hives.

What that means is he had his bees but they needed to be put into their new homes- so we put them into the hives.

What I found most interesting about Jim’s apiary is that he had all different TYPES of beehives! This is unusual because beekeepers will usually pick what works for them and sticks with it almost religiously. Since Jim uses his apiary as a teaching space, he has all different hives to show. Check out my “7: Inspired Academics” post as a reminder of the different hive types.

I asked him his preference and he said, “It doesn’t matter”.

I was surprised, and I like it!

We got to work cleaning a couple hives first to prepare for the installation- that was probably the least fun part but a necessary evil.

🐝 Then came the bees! 🐝

First Jim explained each step of the installation of the first hive, then had me lead during the second!

I find the gloves to be cumbersome. Next time I’ll try just plastic gloves or no gloves when handling bees. That would have made the installation of the Queen much easier.

Then….? *enter suspenseful music here* The cart temporarily holding the nuc hives fell over! We then had to very quickly try and install the bees before they swarmed. We worked well as a team to get the bees into their new home. I think we got it though, whew!

We put one package into a Top Bar Hive:

I’m intrigued with the Top Bar Hive, the natural honeycomb the bees build is beautiful! There’s typically much less honey surplus from this type of hive which is why many don’t opt for it. But for me it’s all about the bees, honey is just a bonus, so I’m intrigued.

I lost all track of time, 3 hours flew by and I realized I needed to go.

One great thing about helping with bees versus having my own is being able to just leave when in need to- I don’t need to clean up etc.

I definitely want my own bees when I get my own place, but for now I’m really enjoying experiencing such great people and their beautiful bees!

Until the next!!