My handsome, charming husband has now added beekeeping to his repertoire! That's right, we added around 20,000 new pets to our home on Easter Sunday in hopes of attaining some home-spun honey... Yum!
We put the bees in back of the barn to keep the "sweet" little things mostly out of our yard (fingers crossed on that one). We bought 2 pounds of bees and their new "queen".
For the sake of explaining the process, it goes like this: we add the 20,000 bees and keep the queen in this tiny separate box in the hive with them so they can get used to her lovely perfume. She, being a queen and all, has her own personal attendants in the little box with her. After a couple days, we take the plug out of her box (well, Paul will be doing that since it involves reaching into the hive full of bees to get the box out) and then replace the plug with a marshmallow. (Yep, I did say marshmallow). The worker bees are so anxious to be able to dote on her, they eat the marshmallow to free their lovely maiden from her chamber and then proceed to hand feed her and wait on her hand and foot (or shall I say wing and antennae?). Anyhow, it is really like a little kingdom in a 2x2 foot box. The bees entire life is devoted to serving their queen and making honey to feed on during the long winter. (At least that's what I've gotten out of the whole process...that, and... well, I guess I'm not Queen Bee around here anymore :)
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