It's the Bee's Knee's and beauty of Spring Storms

Before I begin, Just a reminder to get your comment in on The Backyard Mushroom spore Giveaway in my previous post. Deadline is May 4th, so be sure to get your name in the ring for a chance to experience your own growing of Easy edible Mushrooms!

Our bee hive has been very active. With this hive, I am able to sit within a foot and at times just inches of their entry spot. It became so fascinating to watch their activity with the most amusing being the traffic jam of having just the finger width hole for entry & exit.

If you had read my last post from setting up their hive, you will remember I placed grass in the 1/2 inch spot where my entry reducer was just a tad too short on one end. {can be seen in the picture of our hive in that post}. The "House keeper" bee's have been very busy removing it all. Rather endearing to watch a small insect pulling a long blade of grass from the hole, so determined to get it done as others were constantly walking and bumping into it. Then you have the workers... What a thrill it was to notice the many different colors of pollen on their legs. Hues of bright to mellow yellow. Dark brown oranges to almost a neon orange in color. You begin to wonder where are they traveling to? What plant have they found that gives them such a color?

Not too mention, look at all the different sizes of their pollen collection. The larger amounts almost look like Saddle bags:

You can see the brighter color pollen collected on one of the bee's in this picture below. Not sure why, but the ones with the brighter color yellow's and Oranges were harder to catch for a photo. This is a poor example for sharing of brighter colors. Truly, there were many with more Neon color Nectar.

The winds picked up yesterday so Frog & I walked to the back field for some camera fun. The blades of field grass were bending so beautifully. Waves across the green. The clouds were beginning to get that stormy look as well.So full with variations of white and grey. The sun brightening their back drop. One of the most beautiful things in a Spring storm is when it has a long build up like this one. Air is so warm yet the strong winds have a slight coldness as they whip through. The clouds appeared almost as though they were racing above us. A perfect time to grab a blanket and wonder out to the field for some cloud watching and allow Frog to practice picture taking. She has taken a big interest in it of late. Being 5 1/2 she has not fully comprehended all the skills but has surprised with some of her random snapshots:

Now if this recent over pour of Rain will stay away for the weekend, I may actually get the chicken coop painted with it's final coating of color. I might even get The Captain to do the post holes for my Garden fencing. Yay!

Experimenting with a potential oh so cool project this week. I had read of it's doing in a book published for Ladies in 1890. Of course deciphering  a certain material was nothing but a quick trip to my friends at Abruzzo's, my Favorite Home Brew shop. It's not what ya think, so stay tuned for a little tutorial and what to do with all those first time mini chicken eggs.

Sweet Dreams,

~Tammie