Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Tiny Comb

Inspirational song: Stormy Weather (Etta James)

The winds have finally subsided, for now. It was surreal last night, getting fully engrossed in watching livestreams of supercells racing across Oklahoma, occasionally producing straight-line winds or possible tornadoes, while listening to the winds howling outside my own house. I had just last week moved the ficus back out to the back porch, so that we could vaguely move about our dining room. At least three times since yesterday, the damaging winds knocked the ficus over on its side, dumping potting soil all over the top step. I didn't bother refilling the soil, electing to wait until I knew the bad weather was past.

This afternoon, I was sitting watching videos, minding my own business, when the Mr came home after a study break and dropped a large book on my lap. It was an exhaustive guide to beekeeping. I'm barely 11 pages into it now, and my head is swimming with scientific data on bee anatomy, classification, social structure, races, and more. There is so much I never even considered. I think we need to take a couple steps backwards, to educate ourselves on steps we skipped, like finding out exactly what kind of bees we have. (I'm guessing Italian? based on nearly no research.) 

Mr beekeeper wasn't done with just the book. He still had time to go before settling down to take an online final, so he went to a nearby ranch supply store, and bought long gloves, a jacket with zip-on net hood, and a smoker. He then geared up and went out to release the queens. When he came back, he handed me a little piece of wood with a small clump of comb on it. In just the three days since the bees arrived, a group of them already got started making stuff. Bees really are busy, aren't they?

No comments:

Post a Comment