When I was in NYC last year, I met up with the wonderful Lisa from Bust magazine and we talked crafts, potlucks and honeybees over iced coffees on a hot summer afternoon. Fast forward a couple seasons, and I have an article on beekeeping, plus a photo of me and the bees in the current issue. How exciting! 

The first weekend of beekeeping started with me picking up my bees across the city, and trying to act all cool and nonchalant as the president of our beekeepers’ association handed me a package of about 8,000 bees. And when I say package, I mean package. It’s a simple wooden box with two sides made out of screen, so there’s nothing really to do but grab the box and head for the car as someone yells after me, Hey, you’re a beekeeper now!, and I feel silently proud and thrilled and brave as I march off, just me and the bees.

What I didn’t realize was there would be about fifty or so bees loose on the outside of the package. I put them in the back of our (very small) car, and kept checking the rearview mirror the whole way home. I think I actually talked to them on the way home like they were a troop of Girl Scouts. You guys okay back there? Do you have everything you need?

A generous friend loaned us a corner of her yard, and it was a kind of religious experience, donning the jacket and veil and ushering the bees through her garage and out to the yard. There’s nothing really elegant about the process. Or at least the way I did it. Installing bees feels like pouring a lot of cereal into a huge box. Only instead of Cheerios, you’re pouring thousands of humming and flyaway bees into what I hope will be their happy and productive new home.

Between carrying a smoker, the hive boxes, the thousands of bees, and emotions that lurched wildly between anxiety and amazement, I didn’t bring a camera. But I’m kind of glad. Some things are better imagined and remembered.