1-15-09
Bees and Beach

My friend Ralph told me to look up a friend of his down here on the Kangaroo Island and I finally did. His name is Ben Davis and he was working his bees when I came out.

Some smoke helps settle down the bees so they are easy to work.

This is a section that he said was hatching new bees. Those bees in the center are new hatched ones or ones taking card of the eggs.

The queen bee is in the center here with a white spot on her back. She is laying eggs and the new hatched ones take care of the little grub and feed it and finally cover it over while matures.

He is taking out a cell to check.

This is the cell that he is going to raise queen bees on.

First he grabs the little egg in the bottom of the cell with a special tool that allows him to pick it up and deposit it in the queen cell which is a lot bigger than a regular cell.

I didn’t get a clear photo of the egg but it is on the end of the tool.

He inserts it in the queen cell. The bees will make these cells into queens. He will take them out before they hatch and put them in new hives with some new bees and he will start a new hive that way.

you can just see the head of a new bee emerging here.

He also catches crawfish and the family eatst them. He catches them I the river on the farm.

His dad planted these pine trees sixty years ago and they are now too big for the little sawmills. They sure make nice shade. One problem is that they big black Cockatoos (those biker birds) were feasting on the pine nuts in the cones. This is what happens when they eat a pine cone. He said you gotta watch it because they drop those cones and they hurt.

The back roads on Kangaroo Island are really nice. Not much traffic either. I did scare a kangaroo and baby out into the road and almost ran over her. I was lucky that time.

Raff and kids and I went for a ride on the property down to see the beach. The dog got to go and she also got to run part of the way.

Down near the beach it got a little sandy but his Land Rover handled it well.

The girls showed me how they run and slide down the sand dunes.

I found several Cuttle fish bones and described to Raff how to use them to cast jewelry.

I like this photo of Raff and the beach.

It was shortly after this that I dropped my camera in a pool of salt water. Life goes on but with no eyes……