Rainy Day 2

It rained today, preventing us from exploring the top-bar hives so that I could see the setup in more detail. Oh well, we will do lots later! Agape lent me a book called Communication in Social Bees about the waggle dance becuase we had talked about it yesterday. As Agape said, scientists have studied it to death. Haha! Should be interesting. I also did a lot of reading aloud to the kids today. Boy, do they love reading! Visited the beach, one with lots of sea glass that I hadn't seen yet.

Melchizedek (second son) is making a wicker swarm hive which is awesome! One of the other interns (Cody) built a smaller top-bar hive out of wood and Melchizedek has shown me how to weave wicker onto it. We did a diamond design to reinforce the corners and then started to weave the sides. I messed up a few times but it is really fun. We are trying to figure out how to close gaps in the wicker so that the bees won't come out the sides. You have to keep a bowl of water next to you in order to keep the wicker wet and pliable. Also, some of the vines have to be cut in half to use for wrapping while others are used as ribs. The key is to keep it tight. The wicker was gathered next to the house from vines that are all around. I helped with the hive while Melchizedek was weaving so he promised to help me make a basket later!
Top view (in progress) :

 Diamond corner: