Swarm of Bees

 I went over to mom's at 7:30 am to find Joan getting ready to bake 20 loaves of zucchini bread. That picture below is of the huge bowl of flour and cinnamon.

We did not have to walk today as Ruth had left for her camping trip and Diane was at Middle Grove. Diane and Mike checked on the herd this morning and sent back the video below.

It was neat to see the mares come out of the trees to greet them. Lily gets her carrot then is the first mare to walk forward to the right of the video. Mark wanted to get the driveways graded as the gravel needed to be groomed from the last big rain.

I needed to go to Aldi, Mark needed to go to Bartonville Hardware and after doing both of those things plus filling Mark's car with gas we stopped at the Bartonville Diner to get a late lunch. We were surprised to find the parking lot full at 2:00 pm. That diner is such a popular eating place. We split a meal were in and out in 40 minutes. Joan called that Martha Kay found a swarm of bees at her house and asked Joan to collect them. She made arrangements for Rachel to stay with mom until I could get there by 3:00 pm. Joan asked if I could go to her house to pick 30 ears of corn for their supper tonight. When Diane stopped by I left to get the corn. Berlica was out catching butterflies so helped with that.

The corn was shucked by the middle paddock so the husks could be thrown in their for the horses.

Joan sent a message that the bee collecting went ok it was on the way home that became the problem. The box of bees were in her van but a few straggler bees were flying around as she was driving. She made the mistake of opening the box believing those bees would fly into the box to be with the queen. Bad idea, instead the queen came flying out of the box bringing the rest of the hive with her and filling Joan's van with flying bees. Joan made it home but didn't have time to hunt for the queen as Bill and Bethany's family along with Hannah and Jacob's family were coming for supper at 6:00 pm. She slipped out of the van and was followed by bees but not the queen. When we went by the van there were lots of bees on the outside of the van trying to get into the van. 

Hannah and Jacob arrived with Chelise.

I left mom's before Bill and Bethany arrived as I wanted to take Braelyn, Taegan and Kensley, who were on the trampoline, over to see the bees then home to their house.