We drove up to Dixon, a little south of Taos, on Saturday evening to pick up our two nucs. A nuc is like a mini hive, with a queen, workers, drones, five frames of pollen, honey, and brood. I think each is something like 70,000 bees. But I could be wrong. Any beekeepers out there care to chime in on that?

Dixon, New Mexico is tucked away in a river valley, brimming with water and fruit trees and at the cool, green farm where we finally pulled in after a hundred miles of anticipation--bees.

Everywhere.

We arrived at sunset, when the last of the forager bees were coming home, laden with pollen. We could hear a creek rushing behind all of the beehives where we strolled, with the beekeepers, in the tall grass, among all that buzzing production, with no special protective clothing on. The beekeepers told us bees are for the most part docile, gentle creatures.

We had to transfer 10 frames filled with bees from their hives to ours, which Dennis had strapped ingeniously into the back of the pickup truck. We have two races of bees--Carniolans and Italians.

Our eleven-year-old daughter Jessie had bees on her shirt pocket. One bee inspected Dennis' ear a little too closely for comfort, although he didn't tell anybody about it until the ride home, Mr. Macho. I had one strolling down the arm of my fleece jacket. I thought I'd have to keep on telling myself to breathe in the middle of all of those bees. But surprisingly, I didn't.

It's cold in Dixon in May once the sun slips behind the mountains. We sped home in the cool pitch night, hives of slumbering bees in the truck bed, and then at approximately 10:30 PM, with a drowsy kid leading the way with a Coleman lantern, we placed the hives on their site.

I like the way this is starting out.