The Bees Are Back In Town (With Video)

We had thought the cold snap killed our remaining hive of bees.  Turns out it didn’t, though we haven’t had the time to do a full hive inspection yet.
But we did have another hive, dead from last year after the queen died and our requeening attempt failed, and so we ordered a box of bees from Queen Right Colonies.
NOTE: When you get the notification that “your bees are in,” you are on deadline.  The bees have been trapped in a box for a week as they’ve made the cross-country trip from California, dying off slowly, eating only syrup from a can for nutrients. You wait another week to pick up your bees, they’ll be dead.  You wait a couple of days, the hive will be weak.
And so, when I got a call from Queen Right on Saturday saying, “Hey, we sent an email on Wednesday, are you coming to pick them up?” there was an oh shit moment.  Because today was Gini’s birthday party, and our friends Jeremiah and Laura had come in for the weekend, and could we abandon them for three hours in a mad rush to drive down to Amish country to get our bees in time?
Then I realized: Wait.  Jeremiah and Laura are into crazy shit like this.
Then I said: “Hey, do you guys want to come down with me to pick up my bees?”
Then they said: “FUCK YES WE WANT TO SEE YOUR BEES.”
Yay for good friends!
So after some discussion of what to do – they had a two-year-old girl, and could we trust her not to get stung or panic while we navigated through swarms of bees to get to the pickup area? – Gini stayed at home to take a long luxurious birthday bath, and we headed down.  Everything went fine; little Lois was a champ.  (As was her mother, who is terrified of insects but fascinated by the process.)  And we got a box of bees, and then I got to ask Jeremiah the question he’s been waiting to hear all his life:
“Hey, do you want to put the bees in the hive?”
Oh, the joy on that man’s face.
His wife took the video.  And shaking 10,000 bees into a box looks like this: