Happy Girls

Bummer.  Everyone has had a cold around here, after the nasty crud in December, and the flu over Christmas… and I thought, knock on wood, that it might just pass me by.  Nope.  I got it.  It’s been a horrid cold and flu season around here, hitting people in this community very hard.  Actually, I think it’s been bad everywhere in Wyoming.

It’s a cold, not the flu, for that I’m grateful.  I spent the day laying around.  I don’t generally do that, but I was TIRED!  Vernon did a flying trip to Billings to get our new calf warmer… and I’ll have to show that to you, but I declined to accompany him, thinking that crashing on my couch would be much better than trying to sleep in the pickup.

Ironically enough, I also spent a few hours on the phone working out insurance.  BLECH.

I should have been productive and built my beeswax video… but it was so much easier to read a book and nap!  I *am* in a Facebook group where ag bloggers are learning to improve their videos, and we were supposed to post to Vine.  Vine is like Twitter with 6 second videos instead of 144 characters.  What was I going to do???  Well, my visit to my bees yesterday gave me the answer!

I dropped the dogs off early to let them chase bunnies AWAY from my Bee Barn… sometimes those bees don’t seem to like furry creatures.  I then continued on and, lo and behold… THIS!

My girls were out and flying!!!!  A sight to gladden every beek’s (beekeeper’s) heart!  The warm weather lets them escape from their hive and do what is called a cleansing flight.  I don’t suppose you’ve ever thought about bee poop… I hadn’t before I became a beek!  But bees don’t poop in their hive!  They hold it.  For months.  Then on a warm day, (over 50˚), they fly and poop outside.  I know.  Amazing. If there was a food source they would go for it.  In fact, I’ll be giving them a supplement tomorrow.  There’s still plenty of winter to make it through, and I don’t know how much honey they still have, so I’ll help out a bit just to keep them alive.  I have some store bought food, and I may give them some corn syrup cut with water as well. Mess-opotamia was doing most of this, but my Golden Mean hive was active as well. I’m hoping they’ll make it til spring, but right now? We’re a bunch of Happy Girls!