honeybees

Today while Quinn and I were walking, Dad yells from his mower for us to look at the bee box. The bees had swarmed out in a big whizzing cloud above the box. This had happened a few days before, but they had seemed to settle down again. This time, though, they moved over to the small group of tree-ish bushes that the chickens like to huddle under. The bees then sunk into the foliage and seemed to disappear, but for loud buzzing. It was pretty funny, kind of like Winnie the Pooh. 

Apparently, if a new queen hatches before the old one dies, half of the swarm splits off with the new queen and makes a new nest. The only way to keep your bees is to attempt to capture the queen in a new nesting box thing, so that the workers will stay. So, Dad got on his bee suit - which made me think of Pushing Daisies - and brushed many of the bees into the new box. Apparently he captured the queen, because a few hours later, they seemed to make a new home in the box.

Well, while he was transferring some new honey racks to the new box, he saw that the old box's racks were FULL of honey. So, he took them out and began straining the honey from the wax.

There are sophisticated ways of extracting honey, with machines built to spin the honey out of the wax combs, but we don't have those. So instead, we used the old fashioned smash it out and strain method. :P I think the final count of jars was six? That's a lot of honey! And it is sooooo good.

The day was gorgeous. I got a sunburn. -.- We had a picnic out on the grass! :) 

By the way, Ashlan, I love the notebook you gave me. It's perfect! I'm going to fill it up in no time. :)

I've been reading some interesting books on finance, economics and politics recently. When I say "books" I mean one so far and a stack to go, all by the same author. They are the Uncle Eric books, by Richard Maybury. I think they are for tweens, but they are SO good. I will write more about this tomorrow. I plan on reading the next in the series. Of course, saying that I will write about it tomorrow really jinxes me... We'll see. :)

Okay, I'm so sleepy, so I will nod off now and talk to you tomorrow.

- caroline