The Bees and the Birds

The top bar hive

This weekend was a very full one.  Saturday  Jeff actually took the entire day off from work, a rare event in his life as The Barber in town.  The reason he took it off was two fold--First he had to go pick up his shipment of bees, and Second, because it was Town Wide Yard Sale day, and he is never very busy that day as folks who aren't shopping for bargains tend to avoid the village. 

 The little cage with the queen

He got his bees without any problems.  This year he is not using his top bar beehive, but a more common, square built one.  In order to get the bees into a hive, the queen has to be in there waiting for them.  So the first thing to be done is to take out the little cage the queen is in, and after making sure she is ok, put that inside.  Then my beekeeper put some food, as sugar water, in the hive for the very hungry bees, who have traveled a long way by then.  Lastly, after making a ramp (from an old board) from the ground to the entrance of the hive, he opened the box containing the bees and dumped them onto the ground by the ramp.  And the bees all started crawling up the ramp into the hive to find the queen!! I wish I had been there.  It looks so cool!  I'm glad he had the presence of mind to take photos.

Crawling up the ramp

New hive, new location

 Meanwhile, I was very busy on Main Street, actually selling items.  I was very pleased as Gloria and I look on it more as an educational day--showing who we are, what we do and  what we have, as most people are bargain hunting, not looking to buy hand crafted things.  But we both sold enough to make it worth our while.  And I got quite a lot spun up of this luscious dark brown  fleece which is going to be part of the next weaving project--a shawl done in all natural colors.
And the birds?  That would be my Mama Hen and the three little chicks, now just a day away from two weeks old.  She is taking them all over the yard, causing me no end of distraction and I despair of them ever reaching a decent age---I am so afraid of disaster---they are so tiny!!!  Actually, it is tons of fun to watch them.  They leap up on things, chase after each other, scratch like Mama and peep constantly!  I still won't name them until I find out if they are cockerels or pullets.  Because I am determined to raise the cockerels for the table.  Wonder if I can do it?

Mama Hen and the three chicks