As Requested

I've had a few requests for some news, so here's something to keep everyone happy for a bit.

First of all, a little bragging--for you Grandma. 

 Anne has really loved kindergarten this year and it has been so fun to see how much she's been learning.   

Her school has an awards assembly each marking period, and each time she has gotten an award.  I though I'd share this one with you because she got an award for excellent work habits (like usual) and then she was also chosen as a Young Ambassador and got a T-shirt.  She was thrilled!  She "displayed outstanding school citizenship."  It is a very serious thing to keep all the rules, you know.  :)

While Anne is away, the little sisters play.  They cooked up some delicious food for me.

Our new favorite place to visit is Longwood Gardens. 

There are some really beautiful sites, and all kinds of different gardens. 

 Here's Ruby in the boxwoods.

As requested, here's my belly. 

It really should be documented I guess. 

This is 23 or 24 weeks along.

And the bees.  We got the bees in the hive and they seemed to take to it well.  This swarm happened to swarm on the first really warm day.  It was up in the mid 80's that day, but we were worried it may have been too soon because the temperatures dropped again and it rained--there was even frost--for over a week. The bees just stayed clustered in a ball trying to keep alive, but there were many, many casualties.  We even tried to insulate the hive a little for them. (bees like their hives to be pretty warm---around 85 degrees if I'm remembering correctly) Randy has kept some sugar water in there for them because they weren't able to go out foraging with all the rain and cold--and they obviously didn't bring along any stores of honey with them.

Well, we were horrified at how small their little cluster had become, and the number of dead bees on the bottom of the hive, but Randy (the one who's read all the books) said they like things clean and orderly and that when they had a chance they would take care of it.  

So, I've been curious.

With Randy out of town this week, I've been going out to check the bees--mostly just to see if they're more active and still organized (a good sign that the queen is still alive and "bossing" them around).  Boy, were they busy!  I was transfixed just watching them at the opening to the hive.  There were a lot of them going in and out, but I couldn't make out much order in how they climb all over each other.  Then I started looking at the ground around their hole.  It was littered with dead bees.  As I looked, I noticed two bees wrestling in the grass and wondered what in the world they were doing.  As I watched another two bees fell from the hole to the grass and "wrestled."  Then I realized that only one bee was wrestling.  The other was dead.  They were bringing the dead bees out --I'm really not an expert on bees-- but it seemed like they had hooked on to the dead bees somehow and were then trying to use the grass to free themselves from the dead bee.  It was totally fascinating.  Also as I watched I noticed other bees flying to their hole loaded up with pollen.  Yahoo!!  I think they are going to survive!