Buzzing along here in St. Joseph, Louisiana - still stuck at home, but at least we're at the campground, and we've been enjoying gorgeous spring weather. 

Today was the day!  We had to wait one week to check on "the girls," who are, if you missed last week's blog - my bees.

We put our bees into their new home (hive) last week, and, against all basic instincts, we have left them alone for a whole seven days before checking on them. 

Our assignment today was:

1.  Check to make sure the queen is released from her little queen cage.

2.  Check for any formations being built.

3.  Check to see if they ate all their food. (This, by the way, was about 5 gallons of sugar water).

So... in preparation, we had Elizabeth, our park manager, reading the "Beekeeping for Dummies" book all day today.  I had read this chapter before, but it's been about a month.  It turns out, Elizabeth is a GREAT professor!  She really studied it, and was able to explain all the details to us as we carefully studied the hive today.

Here we are, like girl scouts, being prepared this time.  This is our smoker, and we did get it lit correctly this time so that it burned throughout the adventure:

And here we are smoking the hive.  This calms the bees, and causes them to drop to the bottom of the hive, so that we can take the frames out to see what's going on:

Lo and behold:  the queen's cage is empty... and there's all kinds of stuff being built in there!  It's like a little city! 

Go, girls, go!  Look at this!  All this in just a week, and there are four frames like this already:

The very last frame is still pretty empty... so I'm putting it back, very, very carefully!  That's a NERVOUS smile on my face. (But I am also thoroughly enjoying playing with my bugs).

And this stuff, unfortunately, fell off, attached to the feeder when we removed the top.  Cool, though.  Aren't these perfect little honey combs?

Today - no stings!  Let's hear it for girl scouts. :)

And, I almost forgot.  We saw the queen.  That doesn't always happen, according to the "bee books" we've been reading, so that was a bonus.  She's a real beauty (her name is Sophia, by the way), and she was crawling around in there, just as happy as... well, a bee.

Debb was our photographer today, and she got so excited that the camera shook, and we missed our chance for a picture of her.

Next week, I forgot what we're supposed to do, but I think we get to check it again.  Ernie, if you're reading this, I do remember what you said about letting them "bee."  But... just one more peek shouldn't hurt, huh?  It's so COOL, I can't resist.

Anne Pierson

President of Happy Camper Club, sting-free beekeeper (!) and campground owner with a big box of trouble on the grounds :)

PS - I promise I'll get back on topic about RVing soon!