After a grueling 5 hours straight of working on math homework, my brain was not only a bowl of mush, but craving outdoor air. I indulged in just that.
Turns out, my timing was great. My mom was already outside with my little brother, readying the bee yard for spring. There is a lot to clean up, as winter has made quite a mess of things. Even though we lost two hives to the insane cold (even after attempts to keep them warm), we still have five strong hives that are starting to bring in the first traces of pollen. Where they're getting the fluffy yellow stuff, I have no idea, but the girls are finding it! Something is blooming somewhere, and you never know just how early some plants start waking up for the spring until the bees bring pollen back in the time you consider to still be winter. But they're very healthy and were flying about like crazy on this warmer day.
Bee hives are pretty much boxes stacked on top of each other, hollow boxes that are then filled with frames that are lined up on the inside. The bees will then build their comb on the frames, making it easy for the beekeeper to check the frames and extract the honey from them later in the year. Well, one hive got a box...but no frames. So the bees, being the honest-to-goodness perfect creatures they are, wasted no time utilizing the space they had been given. So instead of building the comb onto a wooden frame, they attached their comb onto the inner lid of the hive, creating stalactite-like rows of comb for themselves. This comb was then filled with honey and brood (the babies), then removed by my mom when they had stopped using it. The results are what you see above. Perfect and sturdy hexagonal chambers that can prove in and of themselves through their intricate perfection that only God could have created them!
"Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste." Proverbs 24:13
"Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." Proverbs 16:24
""I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your word. I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" Psalm 199:101-103
Have a wonderful Monday, everyone! I'm at class all day tomorrow, and I am tired right now as it is. Gotta get up early! ♥
This is really interesting. I really didn't know much about bee hives until I started reading a blog about one a couple months back. This makes me crave some honey :)
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