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.

K-3+ Weeks

Today was hoof trimming day for the very pregnant two-year old, Ms. Babette (she's the dark one in the blog picture and is a true sweetheart by nature.) She is due to kid in just over three weeks, and since I don't like mama hooves to be too sharp with babies newly on the ground, today was the day. She doesn't know yet, but next weekend is her 'maternity haircut', which, if last year was any indication, is going to be quite exciting....

Babette was due last year at about this same time; in hindsight she had either lost the babies or hadn't taken as we expected, it's hard to say without an ultrasound, and we couldn't be sure one way or the other at the time. She was treated just as if she was carrying, including the extra bit of graining leading up to kidding. Babette really liked that part and got to where she'd race me to the stanchion once she was out in the open barn area! However, with two weeks to go, the clippers came out for trimming her back end up to neat and tidy. So here she was, after flying to the stanchion, quietly eating her bit of grain, knowing that a brief brushing could be enjoyed when she was done. All of a sudden, sounding like a hundred little bees buzzing, the clippers turned on and I started to trim her. UP flew her back end, feet flying, and she did the 'stanchion dance' like there was no tomorrow.

So you see, I'm thinking that next weekend should be very exciting around here.