Goodbye Sweet Bees 💛👩‍🦰 🐝💛

You may recall in blog posts 3 and 5, I discussed Lacey's sweet docile bees with their sweet (and yes, lazy) Queen. Well, I see now why Lacey's mentor, Mike, suggested re-Queening at one point...the girls ain't gonna make it over winter.

It didn't occur to either of us that while yes, those docile girls are great to show her kids and get comfortable around bees, they were not working the way that a strong colony must work in order to survive.

Okay, 1 point awarded to Mike,,, and to Darwin.

Dang it! 🤦‍♀️

So, I just had to say goodbye to Lacey’s sweet girls before I headed south for an extended stay with my family.

Last I talked with Lacey, the sweet bees were still alive, so let's all hope the sweeties are tougher than we anticipate. We'd love to be wrong on this one!

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Hello Grandpa Turkey-Lips 💗👩‍🦰👴💗

I now have a Bee Bar!

What is a Bee Bar? I asked the same question and the answer was heartwarming.

As you may know, when I get enthusiastic about something, I am ALL IN, and right now, not all of my family were aware of the degree of my bee fascination.

I was finally able to sit down and update both my dear grandparents, both are 90 years old, and they celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary last June. My Grandma is impressively tech-savvy and has been following my journey on Facebook, so she had an idea about my new love for bees, but my Grandpa was unaware.

Well, I got all excited telling him about my journey thus far and my plan to keep my first bees next spring, he waited for a small break in the conversation (I'm sure he waited about 30 minutes, but I didn't look at my watch), he informed me with much confidence that he had a bee bar.

I paused and asked him what a "bee bar" was. He exaggerated his shock and teased about me not knowing.

As he described it, I asked him, "Do you mean a 'hive tool'?" He was insistent that it was called a "bee bar".

He took me out to the garage/shop to show me the tool. He knew exactly where it was (of course), and pulled out a standard hive tool. I admit that I was a bit surprised that it was actually a hive tool, but got very excited.

I asked him if I could have it because he doesn't do many projects anymore, and he hesitated, then agreed. After seeing his hesitation, I immediately put the tool back and told him that I'm obviously not going to take a tool that he still actively uses or wants. But did ask him why the heck he had a bee hive tool.

He told me to come inside so he could tell me the story behind it.

My grandparents are beautiful Christian people. They love Jesus and have walked-the-walk during their lives as a great example for us all. I love my Grandparents more than I could explain, but a very cool connection I've always had with Grandpa is that he was a redhead before his age took over. I have always proudly stated that I got my red hair from my Grandpa and he still calls me "Red-in-the-Head". *lol*

Anyway, after they retired, they started traveling a lot more, mostly do help set up churches, etc. Usually on these mission trips, Grandpa would do the construction with the men and Grandma would lead the women in a Bible Study. They did variations of this for years and I'm convinced that it's what has kept them young and kickin'!

Well, apparently on one of these projects that happened to be located in Post Falls, Idaho at Ross Point Camp (literally down the street from Philip's work). Grandpa was working to setup a fence on the perimeter of a church camp.

One of the fellows on the project was also a beekeeper and one day he showed up with these bee bars for each of men in the small group. He handed them out because he said the bee bars were a very handy tool for all sorts of things, not just with bees and thought it would help with the fencing project.

Then Grandpa shifted and said,

I'll tell you what, Jac-a-lac, that bee bar has been one

of the most useful tools in my toolbox!

Then he gave me examples of how he used it throughout his mission trips and for years after, even when they became unable to travel with the same rigor.

He obviously could see how much I appreciated the story; I never thought of a tool as having sentimental attachment to it, but I get it now.

He told me to go get the tool, and I told him no because he hesitated. He said he hesitated because of the story behind it but would love if I would take it an use it.

He then ordered me to go get the tool, I obeyed.

So, I received my first beekeeping tool from my incredible Red-in-the-Head Grandfather.

I'm going to keep calling this one a Bee Bar.

I love it.

As if that's not heartwarming enough, there's more with Grandpa!

He gifted me the Bee Bar on 10/18 and that day I set up an easy link to this Blog on his tablet so he could read about my journey.

Well, about a week later after I had stopped by several times, Grandpa had read about 1/2 of my posts and started making references to my specific content from within the posts, then was asking me about bees.

• He commented on my necklace explained in Blog 1,

• He recognized Muse,

• He knew who I was talking about when I referenced Tracy

• He asked me questions about Queens and drones after reading Blog 5

Talk about blessed, wow.

I have a nice group of people showing their support for my beekeeping journey in various ways, people show love and support differently and I appreciate the different roles.

But ya know what?

My Grandfather reading my Blog (basically my diary of good things right now) after giving me a tool that had sentimental value, then- oh yeah!...he was asking questions about hives and may build me some hive stuff!

His deliberate engagement of something this important to me means the world and I'll always treasure that.

Who's go the best Grandpa in the world?! This girl.

My next post will be about my beekeeping experiences in the Treasure Valley (Boise-area).

Photo by J. Steven Robertson of Emmisoure Photography and https://bees.photo