Her Majesty, The Queen

This past weekend we decided it was time to take a peek into our hive. Did you know we're beekeepers? We are! We have one small hive, with two more BIGGER hives being built as we speak. (Because, we have so much fun with one hive, according to my husband's logic, three hives would be three times as fun.)

My favorite part of beekeeping? The honey, of course! Have you ever had fresh honey right from the hive? One word: yum! Nothing better. (Ok, three words.)

Anyhoo.

As I said, it was time to check on the "girls." It's been a long winter, and since this weekend we had relatively warm weather, it was safe to open the hive and check things over. This time, my 11-year-old son, Gage donned his bee suit and helped Daddy. It's important to make sure the queen has survived the winter and the hive, in general is healthy. And yes, apparently we indeed found that things are marvelous in the hive. We didn't actually see the queen (because her workers - the other females - cluster around her in the colder months to keep her warm, thus making her hard to see) but there were signs that the queen was still around and healthy and doing her thing. The brooding chamber had a few active broods so this is all good.

As my husband was closing up the hive, Gage noticed all kinds of little dead bee bodies on the ground.

"Dad, what are these?"
"Oh, those are the male bees - the drones. In the wintertime, the worker bees (the females) expel the drones from the hive. They're not needed anymore after the breeding season is over. So, the males are killed and just tossed out the door."

(Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Gage, on the other hand, did not agree. As was apparent from the look on his face.)

Gage: "Ooooh man. That seems wrong on so many levels."

Maybe so, Gage. But wait until NEXT weekend. When you learn firsthand what it means to castrate a pig.

Heh.