a little bee robbery

Our hive is making really good progress—the bees have already filled up the brood boxes ("their part" of the hive) and now they're starting to make honey for us in the honey super (shorter frames on the top of the hive). They have been slow to move up to the super though, so Elie did some reconfiguring that included removing one of the filled frames. Yum, honey for us!

We cut the comb off, which we mostly likely won't do when we make a big harvest—we'll just spin it out of the frames then. That way, the bees won't have to rebuild the comb. But, it was just too interesting not to cut it up this time! It feels too cool to hold big pieces of honeycomb. It is surprisingly heavy, though out honey is very light in color. I'm not sure exactly where our bees are going to get their nectar. They mostly go North where there are abandoned train tracks that are overgrown with scrubby wildflowers, so that's a guess. Or maybe they're just making soybean honey :-). No matter, soon we'll have a minor field of buckwheat for them to munch on

Anyway, we saved some pieces of comb whole, but most of it we squeezed out through a mesh strainer. Then I rendered the beeswax. That's right! I minded my own beeswax! Oh, it smelled so good and feels so soft. Now I know why all the natural kids catalogs sell it like a play dough. I see some nice candles in my future...