Bug Week

I’ve caulked the observation hive.

It’s Bug Week at the Hot Springs Learning Center, and Isiah is giving a bee talk tomorrow. To be followed by an extraction. To be followed by a tasting.

That’s alternative education for you. No Fruit Loops here. We get the kids jacked up on local, organic honey.

Things are well planned. Isiah has thoroughly researched his subject. We’ve pulled a few frames of honey from his hives. We’ve borrowed the extractor from the Extension office. We’ve a goodly collection of buckets and rags and jars and butter knives and magnifying glasses and butterfly nets and other things we think necessary. And we made an observation hive.

Not a hive, really. More a suitcase just big enough for one frame of honey. With plexiglass sides. The kids will be able to see the inner workings of a bee hive, with the bees safely contained with-in the observation hive. I’m pretty sure I’ve sealed all the cracks.

We’ll pull a frame from the brood box tomorrow. It’ll have honey, pollen, and little brood cells. That’s what I really want to happen: I want a little baby bee to be born during our presentation. That would be, excuse me, really sweet.