Sarah and the Bees

From the time I saw the first wild beehive on the farm I have been pursuing an Apiary we could harvest from. I had scoured the north coast looking for the right person for over a year. Sarah arrived in Cabarete from CT. nine months ago and pursued the idea with a vengeance, but everything takes time. Two months to get acquainted with the farm. two months to build the boxes. Two months to find a person who would sell us the Queens. His name is Johnny. Kindly introduced to us through Giorgio our master planner. Two months for the boxes to get going at Johnny’s place. Last week it was time to move 500,000 bees from Johnny farm to our farm. I had never met Johnny. Diminutive man with an easy smile. First thing he does is pour Sarah and me some honey from his 55 gallon drum which was half full. We downed it. Tire tube scraps, screening and smoker in hand we followed Johnny the 300 yards through the jungle and over a sketchy wire bridge to his Apiary. Johnny filled the smoker with hard wood and lit the match. Fifteen minutes later we followed his trail of smoke through the two million bees in his Apiary. Like a Zen master he waved the smoke as hundred of bees surrounded him. No suit, no headgear. In an hour He masterfully sealed the entrances to all the hives and we started to transport them to his car. I was wondering how Johnny was going to carry the hives across the wire bridge. He wasn’t. Each hive was carried down through the river gulley and up the other side. Arduous. Johnny began to fill his car with the eleven colonies, several of which were encased by hollowed out palm trunks. Johnny spent ten minutes under his old car before the bees were loaded. After watching him work with the bees I had confidence that this 20 year old chevy that would not fetch 50 dollars at auction would find its way to the farm. Darkness fell upon us as we left Johnnys. I took the lead and we moved at 15 miles and hour. Johnny was easy to spot behind me with one and a half headlights. An hour and a half later we arrived at our farm. Six hours after downing that sweet glass of honey. Now in the pitch-blackness with one headlamp and a three-dollar flashlight we began moving the bees to our apiary, which was fenced in the month before to prevent the cows from kicking them over. Johnny and Sarah worked beautifully together selecting the 11 locations inside the apiary. Johnny staring at the night sky like an ancient mariner before placing each box. The next day we checked the boxes. It was possible that the bees might not like their new home and all 500,000 would be gone. All was well. Johnny left us that night with a paper box of honeycomb he had cut from one of our palm tree hives. I put it in the micro house fridge. Two nights later four friends and I sat around the picnic table at the micro house enjoying the honeycomb after a wonderful meal from our farm and the surrounding farms. We left the wax in a pile on the picnic table at nights end. When I woke at six the next morning I found 300 hundred bees on the picnic table collecting what honey was left in the wax we had placed on the table. They were returning it to the hives in the Apiary 800 yards away. I’m sure of it.