A bee in the bonnet, or 2 million in the greenhouse.

I have been a busy little bee loading, unloading, moving bees into the greenhouse, moving bees out of the greenhouse, back in again and finally putting bees in their new hives.  One of my many hobbies is beekeeping.  And since I wanted to keep bees and knew others did as well, I thought it a good idea to start up a little beekeeping club.  The club has since grown to include over 150 members!  Who knew what we were in for when we set forth on this adventure?!

Every year our club gets together and puts in a bee order.  We get bees trucked in from California for new beekeepers to start hives or to replace hives lost during our harsh winters.  This year has been our biggest order by far.  We had nearly 100 packages of bees to dole out!  By my estimation, that's over 1 million bees!  All waiting patiently in my greenhouse for some lucky beekeeper.

This is only half of the bees...

Keeping bees isn't all that hard.  The bees know what to do and as the keepers our job is to make sure that the bees have what they need.  Food in the early spring and sometimes in the fall too, a nice place for the queen to lay her eggs and a lovely spot for the workers to store their delicious honey. 

The bee on the right has pollen in her baskets!

I have been watching the girls frolic in the dandelions then bring home bright yellow pollen in their baskets.  Really, they have areas called pollen baskets on their thighs!  I love to watch the color of the pollen change depending on what's in bloom.




I have to admit the best part is the sweet honey we collect in the fall.  The bees are so generous to make extra to share with us.  One has to be very careful to leave enough for the bees to get through the long northern winters. 

Beautiful honey

So what kind of old time or off beat hobbies do you have?

'Til we meet again,
Ms. Adventure

Ready, SET, go!

Last weekend Daddy-O and I hit a couple garage sales.  The weather is still cool here so there have typically only been three or four garage sales going on each weekend.  Most weekends we have been coming home empty handed.  But not last Saturday!

Check out this beauty...

A little cleaning, as well as some super glue to the area at the rear of the hood and she's good as new.  It works like a charm!  I think it was completely worth the $3 I shelled out for it.

Simon was checking out some newly acquired lampshades.  He's just so darn cute which is a good thing due to the fact that he is so ill behaved.

'Till we meet again,
Ms. Adventure