It's Summer!

Yesterday was officially the first day of summer. Usually I would have a party and some games and crafts.

Considering the fact that I have been sick with a fever, achy body, head ache and just want to sleep we did nothing except go the the chiropractor and the naturalopath.

God provided our entertainment. We have been doing a mini unit study on Painted Lady Butterflies and they emerged from their cocoons yesterday. It was spectacular to watch them emerge, and unwrinkle their wings then finally to fly around the chrysalis. We have also had the privilege to watch our bees draw and amazing amount of comb in just 3 days.

Sean built a Warre Top Bar Hive as an experiment to emulate Bees in the wild. The bees begin their colon in the top of a tree, or wall cavity, or whatever then they build down.

Currently, most beekeepers use a Langstrof hive where the bees begin at the bottom then work their way up. We have 3 Langstrof hives but the Warre is phenomenal to see what the bees are actually doing. Sean put in 2 shutters so that we can remove them and watch through Plexiglas to see the bees progress.

In these photos you can see the white honeycomb that they are building and if you enlarge the photo you can see some of the worker bees inside each cell.

In just 3 days they built the comb all the way to the bottom of the first box! There is no honey stored in there yet, but there is a lot of pollen being brought in.
I suppose I do not always have to plan some extravagant celebration we can just look around and enjoy God's creation.