The Backyard Beekeeper

We've established that Stanton gets obsessed with hobbies, right?  (I do, too, for the record).

A couple of weeks ago a friend from our ward, Matt B., told Stanton about the bees he won (in what kind of contest does one win BEES??  I want to know this...).  That was that and a few days later, we were the proud owners of a hive of bees.  We went in on them with Jim & Rachel, as well as Matt & Emily R., and Tyler and Jana.  Their hive is over at our new property and they are doing really well!  It's actually totally cool and I have wanted bees for a long time (just not right at this busy moment in our lives), so I'm on board with the whole thing.

We stopped over on Saturday afternoon to feed them some sugar water and Stanton found some rouge honeycomb over by the queen's little container.  You're supposed to remove any stray honeycomb (they are supposed to use the boxes to build it), so Stanton brought it over to me.  This was just a week and half after putting them in their hive -- there it was -- perfectly formed honeycomb and a tiny, sweet amount of amber honey.  I was in complete awe as I sucked on that wax with the sweet honey on my tongue.  How do these creatures instinctively know to build that perfect shape?  How can they begin producing honey so quickly?  They are truly amazing creatures.  We are looking forward to many a beekeeping adventure!

 I really need to do a post on all of Stanton's hats one of these days.

 Stanton and Matt with their 3.5 lbs. of bees.  That's about 12,000 bees if you're keeping track.  Can you imagine being the mailman delivering that package??!!

This is pixelated because I was not properly dressed for a close-up shot.  I happily took it from the safety of the Jeep.  I love Stanton's hobbies.  I'm thankful he's doing productive things and getting his mind off the crazy pressure he's under at work.  And the 80 lbs. of honey in the Fall will be a fun reward!