kosmond1 – Page 26 – Backyard Honeycomb

The bees have arrived!

Paul has been waiting for the bees to arrive for several weeks. I heard this every morning:

Paul: Alexa, what’s the temperature today?

Alexa: Right now it’s 48 ‘. Today expect a high of 54’.

Paul: Argh! Alexa, when will it warm up so I can get my bees?

Alexa: Hmmm… I don’t know that one.

Finally! Today was a warm day. We drove to Orem to get the bees.

Did you know there are several types of bees? I didn’t either. They sell Italian bees, Carniolian bees, Russian bees, and Saskatraz bees. The different bee act in different ways. How do they act? That is for a later post.

We purchased $145.00 in Italian bees. Yup, $145 for bees! Why Italian bees? They say they are the best bees for first time bee owners.

Lots of bees in there. Every Container had 10,000 bees.

So excited!

See the bees on top? Paul just put them in the jeep with those to fly around us. It made for a fun ride home.

Bee bus, Ha!

The sound of 10,000 bees. The jeep was not running. Just the sound of bees.

Eli keeping an eye on the bees.

The large beehive will be at Paul’s parents. Paul and and Eli had to mow the pasture down.

The beehive foundation was built on cinder blocks.

A beehive is very simple. Base of the beehive.

The first box of the beehive. Beehives can be several boxes high. This hive will start out with two boxes, but will be three boxes high.

Second box of the beehive.

The beehive is stacked and locked with the hinge.

Looking in the beehive. Those individual slots is where the bees will make the honeycomb.

The top.

Add the roof.

This is a nice little house for those bees. I think they will enjoy it.

Each box of both beehives are decorated with carvings. Makes the hive look really nice.

Time for the bees!

Paul got dressed up in his bee gear. Net, hat and thick gloves.

This was my gear! 🙂

Marshmallow for the queen bee? Crazy, but it’s for her.

That metal tab is where the queen bee is.
The metal can is full of sugar water for bees to eat while they are traveling.

Paul removed the can to expose the 10,000 bees.

The queen bee with all her little bees feeding her.

The queen bee is in that little wooden box with wire mesh windows. Paul had to pop the cork out and replace the cork with the marshmallow. Why? So the other bees in the hive get used to her other wise they will just kill her. The bees eat through the marshmallow and release the queen into the hive.

Paul shook all the bees out. All 10,000.

After getting fiddling with the queen and putting her box in the hive, Paul spread out the bees and saw honeycomb!

The bees have to be fed for a few weeks until they make their own food. So we mixed 2 cups sugar and 1 cup water with a cap full of bee food.

Poked holes in the bag with a toothpick. The bees can then come and eat the sugar water.

We placed the bags of sugar water and some other kind of brown bee food in the hive and then covered the hive back up.

See the white comb the bees already made?

A metal plate to keep the mice out of the hive.

The bees are in their hive, warm, safe, and fed.

Good night, little bees!

Fantastic news!

A while back I was trying to get Eli into Kindergarten early because academically he is ready. He missed the cut off date by a month due to his birth date.

I am so pleased to announce that he received his offer to start kindergarten in August!

I beat the odds! With everyone telling me good luck, you will never get him in early… I did it! Well, my little pea did it. 🙂 And I didn’t have to bake a turkey 🙂 So pleased with him!

Getting ready for the small beehive

Paul has been talking about getting bees for a while now. Worried about our small backyard and having a beehive so close to Eli’s sandbox, Paul decided to get two beehives. One large hive that will go in his parent’s yard and a small hive to go in our yard.

After researching the hive he wanted he finally purchased it and has been waiting for the snow to melt to get things ready.

This beehive will be mounted on a pole. So they dug the hole, positioned the pole, and poured in the cement.

My boys are having fun!

Lots a lot of work ahead to prepare the beehives for the bees arrival. Apparently the weather is still too cold for them. The weather needs to be around 60′ and it’s still in the 50’s. Hopefully we will get the bees the first part of May.

Eli’s 4th Anniversary

Today is Eli’s anniversary of being sealed to us in the temple. It’s been four years, but I still get emotional every time I think about it.

Today was a VERY wet day. It didn’t just rain, it poured! We went to two stores to get ready for our picnic and every time we got out of the store to head to the car it poured rain. We were soaked when we got to the car.

We stopped off at the Sweet Tooth Fairy for cupcakes. Just as we left the store, it started raining so we ran to the car. As we ran up the stairs, I slipped and fell. My elbow hit the cement and my hand landed in the cupcakes. 🙂

We packed a fun lunch of chicken and apple croissant sandwiches and the standard picnic potato salad. With only a few items I couldn’t figure out why the basket was so heavy. When I opened it, this is what I found… Eli packed his cars and trucks. 🙂

I love this little boy!

Off to the Oquirrh Temple. We were having fun taking MANY selfies of the three of us and trying to get Eli to smile normal.

Many pictures like this. 🙂

After having fun with selfies and trying to get the three of us, Eli to smile properly, AND get the temple, a couple offered to take our picture. Eli didn’t want anyone to take his picture.

We enjoyed walking around the temple grounds looking at all the flowers. It’s the end of the tulip season, but they were still so beautiful.

Had fun in the fountain.

With the thousands of adoptive parents and only a hundred children to adopt, it’s still amazing to me that we found our son. Our birth mother read many profiles and at the end it was between us and other couple. I’m so blessed she picked us to be Eli’s parents!

My cute little boy. He is always laughing and goofing off!

We set up chairs for our picnic.

He opened his gift.

We started to eat, and the thunder rolled in. Moments later…

Pouring again. So we finished our picnic in the car.

Our sad cupcakes.

aaa

Love you little pea.

Just another day

We did our usual school work in the morning. Reading, math, and writing.

I asked Eli to write his 3’s and left to put laundry away. When I came back, Eli told me the monster ate his 3’s 🙂

We left to one of the stores to help out our employees with a large catering order. I told the missionaries I would cater their lunch today. We always cater sandwiches, chips, and cookies to the new missionaries that have rotated into our stake. I didn’t take pictures of us 🙂 But my parents were there helping us out. We always love to do this for our missionaries!

We stopped in a the IFA to see the new chicks.

Note the Ameraucana’s Personality: Sweet, trusting, fun.

Note the Brown Leghorn’s personality: Active and intelligent.

Note the Fast White Broiler’s personality: Hungry.

Ha! I guess Eli and I come from the Fast White Broiler family because we are always hungry!!

Area manager gets stuck

Went for a long run today. Well, if you call it a long run.

I don’t know how I’m going to be ready for these marathons this year. My foot just isn’t cooperating.

I had to go to one of the stores to get a few things done today. It’s a good thing I did. 🙂

Just before I left I received a phone call from my area manager. He said he was locked in the bathroom. I told him to unlock the door 🙂 He said he tried that, but the door still wouldn’t open. So I walked down the hall and tried pulling on the knob. Yup. Stuck.

My dad didn’t believe me that it was stuck 🙂

It’s a good thing my parents came to the store with me. My dad had his toolbox with him. He doesn’t go to any of the stores without it.

He removed the door knob.

“Hi, Dylan!”

Well, I thought it was funny.

Finally

It finally warmed up a bit.

Out for a run. It’s the beginning of the year and my foot is really bothering me. It’s making training hard.

My Morfar

My Morfar passed this week so we went down to his house to clean it out.

Eli had fun on the Dolly moving furniture down to the trucks.

He also had fun with (his) morfar moving furniture. Waiting for the elevator.

While cleaning out stuff, I found a picture of bestemor. My morfar’s mother. It’s been many years, but I remember her.

That weekend was the funeral. Ferelyn and her family drove in. Always fun to see them! Mormor with her grandchildren. My parents love it when the family comes together.

Seth and his wooden tie. Reminds me I need to make one for Eli.

Can’t have a Norwegian party with out marzipan cake! It was delicious.

During the funeral, many stories were told of Morfar. One story was he always sung a jingle when someone came over to the house. I remember as a kid morfar singing this to us as we walked through the door and. So at the end of the viewing we all sang the jingle. I didn’t get it on camera so we had to do our own.