The Carnolians have landed!

Carnolians?

Are we being invaded??

Not really.

No... they're not a race of aliens from Star Trek.

No... it's not a musical group.

No.... it's not a family of circus performers.

Actually, this all-female group has taken up residence in our back yard... and we're so excited!

Once they arrived, we oriented their habitat near the back of our property, I removed the wadded up paper towel that was shoved into the doorway, and out they came... dispersing into the air!

Yes.. something was definitely a-buzz! ;-)


So... the lastest addition to our litany of Castle Guards is, in fact, a colony of bees! We've talked about hosting a hive in our yard for several years, so for Christmas, I surprised LeeAnn with a full-on, deluxe beekeeper's starter kit; hive, outfit... everything. Giddy was about the best way to describe her reaction. Since then she's been reading the books I got her (including Beekeeping for Dummies), and she's attended a meeting of the local beekeepers association. One of the other members became her mentor and "split" his bees with us. (I was picturing thousands of 1/2 bees flying in circles, but I digress.) He took our hive and brought it back to us with a few frames of his bees transferred inside. We estimated there were about 1,000 -2,000. The one box will hold 20 -25,000 "girls" (its' about 20" x 20" x 16"). We started giving them all names, but gave up after a while. ;-)

The Carnolians are reputed to be a gentle strain, but very diligent workers; up & out to work early in the morning and not put off by light rain showers.

So... hopefully we'll be jarrin' up some sweet bee by-product later this year! I've already got a name for it...


"The Real Honeys of Orange County"



OK... groan if you must. ;-)


G