The buzz

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! We sure did. I didn't get as much done as I'd planned, but I did get to rest, spend time with the family, and sleep.

The garden, however, is still under construction. It seems that no matter how much I plant, there's still more to do. I am also trying to keep better records this year. I've started a notebook, listing each type of plant and how many, the date planted, etc. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with this throughout harvest, listing the amount produced by each variety, notes on hardiness, any problems or diseases...you get the idea.

So...here's the buzz....

I know it's hard to tell, but those are honeybees!! About a zillion or so. lol Our neighbor's hive split and swarmed right into one of our trees. Mega cool. Even better was watching them retrieve the bees. They took a ladder and attempted to climb up, but the bees didn't care for that idea, so instead they used the ladder to whack the branch, knocking the majority of the bees off, which fell into a box/hive. As long as the queen ends up in the box, most of the bees will stay in the box with her. A couple of pounds of bees ended up back on the branch thanks to the pheromones the queen left behind. There was still a small bee pile on the tree the next morning, but by afternoon, they'd all found their way home.

In other news, we have the only (as far as I know) arboreal rabbits in existence:


This tree stump is huge, at least four feet tall. It was an enormous double cherry tree. The hole at the top of the stump leads to the enclosed 'crotch' of the tree. Apparently, it is an excellent place for a rabbit to build a nest and have a nice pile of kits. The stump is inside our big bunny pen. We'd hoped the rabbits would dig it out, but instead they've turned it into a condo.