Day 27: Bee bites and candles

Went into the bees this morning to take out the plastic feed bags. Might as well not make them work hard to get all the plastic out. Plus, we did some hive inspections while we worked. I learned the difference between a queen cup and a queen cell. Queen cups are built in preparation for a new queen to be laid. Queen cells are when the egg has been lain inside, which is capped 9 days later. Then, she emerges on day 16. Unfortunately, I got a bee sting on my wrist. They call them "bee bites" here but it means a bee sting. It didn't hurt to badly but limited my wrist movements for the rest of the day. 

My swollen hand:

 

I helped around the house today becuase there is a family coming to stay for a few days tomorrow. I painted the lower cabin and the entire kitchen. The kitchen included the fridge which rusts quickly becuase we are so near the ocean. 

Me painting:

 Close-up:

 We also made candles today with the wax we rendered! We melted the wheel of wax over the stove. We prepared the molds which meant cleaning them out and then placing the wick. This was tricky because the wick had to be straight and sit inside the mold. We tied the wick to a stick across the top to hold it in place.
Me tying the wick to a stick over the mold:

 Melting the wax:

 Me pouring the wax into the mold:

 Pouring the wax into the mold, which had a toothbrush instead of a stick to hold the wick:

 Enoch and I watching Kwao put the top-bar hive we worked on yesterday together. He nailed the front and back onto the sides:

 Nailing the side to the front is tricky because the side has to be held above the ground:

 The finished candles! We didn't put the wick in correctly on the big one but we are going to melt it down and try again...