Where has the time gone???

I can't believe how long it has been since I've last posted! So much busyness and so much fun....

The bees arrived, actually, three sets of bees arrived.

The Bee Saga: Bee package 1 arrived, the queen ate through her little marshmallow plug quite successfully. So successful was she that the rude little soul promptly absconded from the hive and took all of the worker bees with her! There is nothing quite like hearing no buzzing, looking in and seeing no bees and knowing that $100.00 just winged their way away. Not much to be done unless you are able to locate the swarm. This is NOT a normal occurence; we suspect we had a floozy queen! Bee package 2 was courtesy of the bee guy who felt so bad about what happened with bee package 1, that he gave Watson all of the hitchhiker bees from the following week's California bee pick up and also gave him a new queen. This time, the entrance/exit was blocked and the new group took a few happy days getting to know each other before the queen was released into the hive, and they are now happily setting up housekeeping. Now the more exciting news: the bee guy had a few packages that didn't sell, so he offered Watson a free 4# package with queen! After lots of scrambling there are now two happy hives sitting in the bee yard (the little pasture behind all of the high hot wire due to the possibility of friendly bears who might decide to visit as a result of the delicious honey smell.) Watson is doing great and having a blast; he has lots of fussy stuff to worry over, just his cup of tea!

Preparing to handle a bee package for the first time!

Very noisy, not too happy, 3 # package (9,000 bees) plus one queen.

The floozy queen in the temporary queen box, prior to adding the marshmallow plug.

Goat News: The goat kids have grown and are doing wonderfully with the herd in the few hours a day that they are all mixed together. Babette is separated from her babies at night, starting when they were three weeks old, and I am milking her in the morning only and then letting the babies have the milk during the day and early evening. So far the arrangement is working out well, and Babette's teats are enlarging little by little and she is becoming more patient on the milking stanchion.