Bzzz, bzzz said the bee!

Bees have arrived! The post office called bright and early this morning, saying our bees had come in. I loaded the kids up in the truck and headed out to get them around 9 am. They were packaged very well - this is the first time we have ordered from this particular supplier, and the first time we have ordered "nucs". So what in the world is a nuc, you ask? A small hive. Basically, we ordered jump-started bees. Normally we order package bees, for around $70 for 3 pounds, or approx. 20,000 bees plus a queen. They come in a screened box, there are no frames or brood (baby bees). So when we place the package bees in an empty, open hive, they start from scratch. There are frames in the hive, but there isn't any honey or comb or brood or anything. In a nuc hive, there are 5 frames (normal hive has 10 frames per box). And these 5 frames have honey, brood, and about 20,000 bees plus queen. So we remove the 5 frames out of the nuc box (which is obviously half the size of a typical hive body box) and place the frames into our ready hive that has 5 empty frames and then space for the 5 incoming frames from the nuc. So the bees are way ahead of the curve. However, a nuc is double the price, so we pay for the jump-start. I will post pics later, once John gets home from work and we start moving the bees into our 3 hives here at our farm. Asher's bee veil had a rip in it I repaired this afternoon, and his bee hat had a hole chewed in it from a mouse! It had gotten left down at the barn. So I patched that up as well. We are ready to get a peek at these nucs and get them settled into their new, permanent homes. Three will stay here, and the other three John will run up to the Mullikin's farm which is 3 miles down the road. We went out to their farm on Tuesday so John could go ahead and set up the empty hive boxes and get everything ready for the bees. Also, the baby chicks are 4 weeks old today! They are about 3x the size they were when we got them. We are at 49 chicks. They are still brooding in the garage, which has been challenging, but I think I have finally figured out a good method for cleaning up their litter which helps dramatically with the smell - plus leaving one of the garage doors open helps exchange the air and keep it bearable. We are in a pickle as we can't mix the baby chicks with the older hens until they are 8 weeks old, and the baby turkey poults are coming in 2.5 weeks, when the chicks will be 6.5 weeks old, so even if we moved the chicks to the tobacco stripping room area of the barn we would then have no place for the turkey poults to brood, other than in the garage again. So at this point, now of course this could change, the baby chicks will stay in the garage until they are 8 weeks and can integrate with the big hens. However, I would like to move them to the stripping room this weekend, and then when the turkey poults come, brood them in the garage, then move the chicks 1.5 weeks later in with the big hens, and move the turkeys in the stripping room at that point until they can handle being in their pen without a heat lamp, which should be around 6 weeks old. Lots of juggling, but what is going to happen if we keep the baby chicks in the garage is they are going to start flying out of their brooder box. John is sick to death of talking about all of this and is about to the point of wishing we hadn't even gotten them! It has been a source of contention figuring out where the best place is for everybody, etc. Very frustrating and we certainly will NOT be brooding baby anythings this early in the spring next year! The weather is just too unpredictable. It is still in the upper 30s at night here, although by next week it should be in the upper 40s at night. OK, Allie girl is awake from her nap, so on to the next thing!