Our hive was buzzing along beautifully. A little slow on the draw, but steadily moving along. We had a sad and surprising upset however. Instead of cow tipping, someone decided to do some bee hive tipping under the cover of darkness. Now messing with a cow seems much different to me than tipping over a bee hive, but then I am a city girl, who begged my parents to stop at the side of the road, so that we could photograph the cows! Just say’in that I don’t know a lot about these bovine beauties. I do know bees though, or more correctly am learning about them, the hard way! We have been stung 4 times now. I have been stung twice right through my glove. I am thinking I am going to change out that canvas glove for a hardy leather one. If you have the same problem with stings through your gloves,  order at Dadant bee suppliers here:  https://www.dadant.com/catalog/clothing/gloves   Dadant generously donated the supplies for the scholarship bee keeping students this year. My son included, Thank you!

Speaking of bee stings; I walked out behind the Community Garden on that summer day to see that “Blondie and the Girls” (see how they got their nick name here. ) had been tipped over and were laying there helplessly on the grass. Because of this alarming turn of events I chose to forgo the addition of the smoker. That means that I rushed head long to save the day with no back up at all. I did put the suit on though. I am not totally dense! My knight in shining armor(well, my knight with in shorts with a risky but courageous attitude) was out of town at the time. He was at Philmont Scout Ranch with our boys hiking up Mt. Baldy. So I was on my own. Let me just say that a bee hive full of bees is HEAVY! Once I had successfully righted the whole hive back in place I had been stung twice and had sweat dripping down into all my major body crevices. I did however become closer to my Father, whom I implored repeatedly to please get control of His bees! In midst of the loud drone of angry bees I had to sing “This little Light of Mine” over and over, which is the only tune that I could conjure from the depths of my mind in the stress of the moment.

I know it is mean and probably not at all Christian like, but I can’t help hoping that the culprits got stung multiple times in the most tender of places. They probably got off Scott free though, because it seems they used a long metal pole to do the tipping and when it is dark out bees don’t fly but just crawl. Like bees don’t have enough problems in today’s world without being knocked over from time to time! I have to admit here with a wink and a smile that it was the most wonderful of sneaky night time, mischievous pranks. While I was an old soul as a child, meaning I was very serious and conscientious, I do know some grown men that would have loved the adventure of tipping a bee hive when they were boys;)

Thankfully it seems there is no harm done , as the bees are coming along quite nicely. They are quickly out growing their 2 deep boxes and will need the addition of a third box, which they will hopefully fill with honey for us! I will keep you posted. In the meantime I will pray that our mischievous summer time pranksters have had their fill of bee hive tipping!