And Then There Were Three...

As you recall, we were planning on re-queening our surviving hive. And then it died. And on Easter Sunday, we repopulated both our hives with new packages. But that left us with a spare queen bee. We had already ordered her--what were we going to DO with her? But we had a spare hive body. So we talked to an acquaintance from BUMBA, who was able to provide us some bees from a crowded and queen-less colony. Yesterday, we drove from Baltimore to Columbia to Frederick to Columbia to Clinton and finally back home, collecting bees. The bees that escaped in the car found our virgin queen in her little cage and were trying to get to her, even before we got them all out of the car! We put the queen and the bees in the empty hive. It's something of a long shot, but it's worth a try! We'll post updates. Tonight, we have three hives. Tomorrow, who knows?

Ancient Buried Treasure!

Well, there's not much of it. And it's not gold, it's rock. And it really isn't worth all that much. But it WAS buried! And we dug it up as we were putting in the furrows to plant the garden. It's a stone point, about 2.5" long, bifacially worked in what looks like quartz. There's no way to date it, since it was in the top 6 inches of the soil. It has probably been disturbed many times. But it is a neat reminder that we are not the first ones on this land. There is history here, going back hundreds of years. And now we can hold a little bit of it in our hands.