More farm fun!

This week Chris got in a load of new bees to populate her 6 new hives. The elementary school classes from Delphi came to see the arrival, and we came too. We did one hive with the school, and after they took off on the bus, Chris got me all geared up with a bee hat and I jumped in too! It was very intimidating at first, there were literally thousands of bees zooming through the air and they land on you by the dozen. It was also fascinating, and incredibly fun. I'm still working on my "future plan", but I can guarantee you now, it's going to involve bee hives. One of my first questions was how you convince the bees that this is their new home, and the answer was much more involved and interesting than I expected! The bees arrive in a box with a canister of sugar water. In a separate tiny box inside the big box is the queen. You remove the cork plug from her small box, and re-plug with marshmallow. Then you place the queen hanging from the top of the hive. Open up the big box, dump the mass of bees in, and close it up. The top is a series of wooden bars with a bit of wax on them to get them started. The bees will make a honeycomb from each and every bar extending to the bottom of the hive. Once you dump the bees in, their first concern is to get to their queen, who they can sense by her smell.  They eat through the marshmallow and release her from her box. After that, they know the hive is home, because that's where the queen is. Fascinating!

Checking out the bees while they are still in their box.

Active hive. All those dots in front of the people? Yeah, those are bees. 

Getting a lesson on how the hive works. 

Awaiting release. This is just one hive's worth!

After the bees, everyone took some time to tour the farm. It's funny, because I look at us as the newcomers. But apparently we've spent more time over there and learned more than I thought! Rebecca jumped right in as a tour guide.  :)

After the school kids left, it was time to milk the cows! Here are the kids hauling the milk machine to the barn. 

Stand back! Here come the cows!

Brushing Tillie. The blur in her hand is the brush.

Riding Pearl as a reward for a job well done. This horse is taller than me by a LOT. Rebecca was in heaven. 

The previously flooded field where the llamas were rescued, back to normal now.

Caiden was very dubious about this whole thing, so I only managed to snap one picture of him. He told me afterward though that it was TONS of fun.   :)