It's All a Buzz

Hello Friends.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  That my friends is a beautiful sound.  This past Saturday I went with MOM and the other bee peeps to do an inspection of the beehives.  Did you know that the month of May in the bee world is known as swarm month.  Those bees are, well... busy as bees in the month of May and a lot of activity takes place. Come along with me as we check out our beehives at me and MOM's church.

The sign makes it pretty clear.  We must use caution, stay calm, and be one with nature and the bees.  If you are wondering I do not wear a bee suit, I am very calm around the bees and this time my MOM didn't wear anything.   Ummmm I mean she did have on shorts and a t-shirt but no bee gear.   Hehehhhehe
{this is a serious note.  Sunday night I received word that my friend WEENIE walked into a beehive and got stung over 60 times and went into shock and is at the ER.  Please click on Weenie's name to send your support, prayers and POTP.  I am praying for you friend.  So again I will say, always, always use caution around beehives.  I don't know what kind of bees Weenie encountered, if they were honey bees or African bees (which don't care if you are calm and minding your own business a distance away.  They are angry critters and will attack without cause.)  In any case, be careful friends please.  I decided to continue this post as my MOM had already prepared it for me and I feel very strongly about the important role bees play in our lives, all of our lives.  We need to be careful.}  UPDATE- it is with a very said heart that I learned Monday night that Weenie crossed over the Bridge.  Please friends click on Weenies name to offer words of comfort to his sister Mona and his mom Sarah.

Here I am waiting for the Bee Peeps to come.  Yes the bees were buzzing about me, but they know me and just buzzed by to say, "Hey Goose, it's a Bee-U-T-Ful day."

OK, the first thing that needed to be done was we needed to create some smoke to calm the bees down.

Now this is embarrassing.  But my MOM thought this was an artsy shot of the smoker.  "Sheesh MOM, my friends read this."

That's Queen Bee Kristen, she is super good at getting the smoke started.  It's not just as easy as lighting some paper and sticks on fire or a cigar.  Nope, there is special way to do it and just the right ingredients to make the perfect bee smoke.

This is the top of one of the hives with the lid off.  If ya look close you can see some bees.  That liquid is a sugar water solution to help the bees get started.  They love the stuff.

OK the smoker is ready and we are about to lift off that sugar water feeder box thingy.

OH MY GOODNESS!  Would you look at all those bees!  Hard at work.

That's Mr. Allan giving the comb a good look over.  All looks real good.  They are making honey and LOTS of new bees are hatching (I don't know if that's what ya call it, but lots of new bees are coming to life.)

Is this cool or what?  Let me help you answer that... IT IS COOL.

MOM got in real close to take their picture.  The bees don't mind the paparazzi all up in their face.  They are pros and just keep working away.  Do you see that bee butt to the far right.  hahahha

Now this is really cool.  If you look center right you can see a Worker Bee that is emerging from it's cell.  Just a little bit ago this Worker Bee was just a larva and now it is eating away at the wax to get out of the cell so it can get to work.  

Can you see that bee with the red dot on it?  No?  Here let's get a bit closer.  Remember keep calm.

There she is.  That is the Queen Bee.  Look how all her loyal subjects surround her taking care of her every need.  Why the red dot?  That is so she can be easily identified.  Yep someone's job somewhere is to paint a red dot on Queen Bees.

OK Friends  it's time to move on to inspect the other hive.  All was well with the first one and soon, very soon, we will have honey and we will be adding another level on to each hive so all those bees have plenty of room.  Hope ya all enjoyed the Bee Tour.

Blessings,

Goose

Program Note: For the last several months my MOM has taken on something new, and boy does it take a lot of her time.  In addition to this something new (which we will tell you about at a later time) and her church job, and various other stuffs, not to mention that softball season has just started, I am afraid there is not a whole lot of time left in a day.  I talked it over with her and said it would be OK if she only helped me post 3 or 4 times a week.  I promise we will read each of your blogs each day, but commenting might be less than we normally do.  I feel badly, but if MOM does not get 4 or so hours of sleep each day she get real sick.  I hope you understand.  Butt we WILL be reading each of your post.