FALL IS COMING

BEE BREAKFAST BAR

Caught some early morning bee-grazing. The Ladies are still at it.

Also, tonight we opened the hive again, while Amanda, Ryan, twin babies Lidya and Grant were with us. Only Ryan came close to observe. The Ladies are hard at it. Lots of comb on new super, but only 10% filled with honey, and only 2% of comb capped with honey inside. ... i.e., "room to grow."

Got to admit, though. The photo is just a bumble bee passing thru, near my Ladies. The bumbler is a real ham, right?

THE AERODYNAMICS OF CARGO BEES

Please click on these photo's. It's the best I could do with a cheap instamatic, but still it is fascinating what these ladies do all day, every day. Soon as the sun opens flowering blossoms the ladies take flight en mass to bring back the pollen and nectar. If you've ever seen a hang glider come in for a landing, it sure looks like the ladies here have it knocked solid. Also, see the leg-sacks of pollen. On this day they were bringing back material from bright orange flowers. A dew even showed up having found white blossoms, that made it appear they were wearing white bloomers. The girls are so focused on their tasks that they ignored my bare hands holding the camera just six inches away. And this morning I discovered they have resumed the consumption rate of 1/2 gallon of sugared water per day.

TOURISTS POSING AT LOOKOUT TO BEAR BUTTE

We live in such a scenic wonderland. It was Motorcycle Rally week, with 17 gazillion motorcycling tourists. The Pack Goats wanted to go sight-seeing, too. So we went up to (our privately named) Picnic Point. Appropriate to the setting the goats asked if I would snap some photo's of them posing like tourists, with Bear Butte and Piedmont Valley in the background. (Hey. It gets kinda "isolated" out here in the Black Hills now and then, so we entertain ourselves.)

HIVE AT SIX WEEKS: CAUGHT BY SURPRISE!

We opened the hive on July 22 (about 6-weeks) to check on things. One frame (#6) in the upper hive box was fully covered with comb that was 2/3 capped with tan wax (brood) and 1/3 capped with white wax (honey to eat later). The outer frames (#1, #10) were much more proportionately covered in white-capped honey stores. All seemed healthy. Too healthy! I was caught with my frames down. Needed to expand the hive asap to disuade "swarming" (colony abandonment of hive). Rush-ordered new hive eqpt from Georgia.