May 17, 2011 | Update!

HEY! We’re actual beekeepers now.

The bees have arrived! Yes, friends, at 8:00am we headed over to the pick-up site in the rainstorm, and got our very own bundle of joy - a box of honey bees!

Jim and Liane of NYC beekeeping were extremely helpful in making sure that we knew how to get the bees from the box to the hive, gave a little review slideshow (phew) and off we went! Down the street with a suspiciously buzzing black plastic bag...

We then left the box in the Habana office and set out to collect all of the materials we needed: a new, empty spray bottle, a bucket, some dish washing gloves, a towel, and some wax paper.  Last but certainly not least, we also needed a single marshmallow, to plug up the hole in the queen cage.  Though coffee shops wanted to oblige, it seems we're out of hot chocolate season - no one had any marshmallows handy.  We luckily found a bag of mini marshmallows at the bodega up the block, so tonight's desert will be teeny tiny s'mores!

We mixed up a small bag of pollen with some water to make a sort of pie-crusty-dough out of it, rolled it between two sheets of wax paper and wound up with a little pollen cake for the bees to munch on as they get used to their new home. We then brought everything upstairs to get started and suited up in our awesome bee suits. Or rather, I had a bee suit and my trusty bee-assistant Daniel wore a raincoat with the hood up.  We don't recommend that at all - we really need to get him a proper suit - but he kept a safe distance so that he wouldn't get stung.

We sprayed the bees down with some sugar-water, pried open the box with a pocket knife, removed the feeder and the queen cage and got all of the bees situated.  I got stung on the knee, but I was actually pleasantly surprised that only one actually got me. The sting went through the jeans, so it hurt a lot less.  That was the first of many bee stings to come, I'd imagine!

So! We're officially beekeepers. I'll be checking back in on them soon to make sure they look like they're starting to build comb, so expect more updates in the near future.  And while you wait, check out our beekeeping photo album on facebook to get today's full experience!