Bees!

Ooh I love bees.

August 18th is national Honey Bee Day so our beekeeping neighbor had an open house for "wannabees" to learn about keeping bees.

I have wanted to keep bees since I read Sue Hubbell's A Book of Bees 20 years ago and Rob has taken a class and been interested, too.  The Bee Priestess class I took makes me even more excited about keeping some honey making bees nearby.  But it does take time and money; neither of which we have much of to spare, so we'll see.

Rob is keeping an eye on Craigslist for some bee equipment.

Here's a frame filled with honeycomb from one of her hives that had just killed its queen.  Our neighbor has had trouble keeping her bees happy and alive, but she still loves all that she has learned from the last year of keeping bees.

The honeycomb filled with some black pollen, some yellow pollen, and some nectar.  It is very pleasing to me, seeing how the bees create honey and I love how each step in the process is so mysterious and complex. (Part of how the bees turn nectar into honey is by "fanning their wings in a coordinated effort" to evaporate the water from the honey!)
http://www.beeswaxco.com/howbeesMakeHoney.htm

Georgia and I inspect the honeycomb.

Lily sprays herself with the smoker. Our neighbor fills it with pine needles and lights it to make a smoke that soothes the bees and keeps them from stinging when she messes with the hive (It blocks the alarm pheromones they send to each other!)

I'll keep you posted on bees.  We'd have to order them in the mail by late winter.