Bee Keeping!

Today Andrew embraced the family business. 

Well, kind of. 

Andrews grandpa has had a honey farm for years now. We have always gotten our honey and bee pollen from him, but I personally have never tried anything to do with bee-keeping. 

(That has not changed) 

But when Andrew found a bee nest on our property, it was quickly decided that it needed to go. 

(Apparently swarming bees and small children don't mix too well!)

And thats how this adventure started! 

One bee hive. 

Two men.

This is the hive. 

Its under the lid for one of our wells. They didnt want the hive to fall down into the water, so it made it sort of tricky to get too. 

They started by making a small, smoky fire to placate the bees, which kind of worked. 

Andrews job was to hold a metal pan under the hive, which Phii Nu cut chunks off the hive. At first, this seemed like a bad idea, but it ended up working pretty well! 

Andrew acutally didnt get stung once, and Phii Nu, only 3 times! 

 Success! 

It took about 20 minutes and we had ourselves a bucket full of honeycombs! We started to eat right away and it was delicious! 

It was only after a few bites that we realized that the chunk we were eating was already full of bee larvae. Not the worst thing in the world, but they look like maggots, which was kinda gross! 

 But it tasted fine and we didn't feel sick! 

Add that to our list of strange things we have eaten! 

We sat on the stairs, chatted and ate our spoils. Our fingers were dripping with tart honey as we swatted the last of the bees away. 

It was such a good experiance that we are hoping to repeat it! 

Since Andrews grandpa has a bee farm, we are hoping that while we are in Canada, he will teach us about bee keeping. It was amazing to look into the honey combs and see the bee larvae at different stages, all in perfect little pockets (Im probably using the wrong lingo, sorry!) and covered in honey. So intricate and perfectly constructed! What amazing little creatures! 

Now I must be off, I have some fresh honey in the fridge, waiting to be devoured!