The Bees and Me Field Trip

Our local nature center hosted an educational event on bees this afternoon. My mother-in-law dropped off a flyer during the garage sale about it, and we decided it was a good way to get out of the house on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. All of us, that is, but Eli...considering bees are his nemeses and a single sting will land him in the ER (sans insurance), he stayed home with Ian to watch some football. (On a side note, it's my team versus his team today, so our outing could also be considered a peace-keeping mission.)

We wandered around for a while looking at the wildlife specimens on display: some were alive, others...not so much.

Ornate box turtle (alive).

Wolf, coyote, fox, raccoon, etc. pelts (obviously not alive) and Gavin.

Milk snake.

I think his expression says it all.

We're currently studying early American history, so it was a great visual aid for the boys to see this arrowhead display.

Whitetail fawn.

Long-eared owl

The most amazing display they had set up, in my opinion, was a working beehive in a glass-fronted case. A naturalist pointed out the queen bee to us as she moved her way to an empty honeycomb cell to lay an egg.

Behind the hive case, a tube served as a backdoor for the bees to travel outside.

They had several craft stations set up for kids. The boys were able to make beeswax candles (with sheets of beeswax rolled around a wick), paint a honeycomb picture with bubble wrap, and made "pool noodle" and pipe cleaner bees that they put on a cord and raced, zip-line style.

Gavin had a blast dressing up as a beekeeper, and I'm pretty sure had his picture taken for a newspaper as a lady (pictured in background with a camera) came over later and wrote his name in a notebook. He was a bit disappointed they didn't take him out to the hive to smoke some bees. Aidan made himself useful by helping hand out samples of honey. It took Liam a while to come out of his shell, but I think he had fun anyway. We got to take "honey straw" samples home with us.

Gavin getting suited up...by my old neighbor!

I caught Liam licking this honeycomb...ew

Aidan serving honey samples...lemon, cinnamon, and regular.

I got to see some people I haven't seen in many many years as well. I ran into my third grade (public school) teacher, who came over and talked for a while. She was always one of my favorites. I also ran into some old neighbors, who were also the first employers I ever had, picking rock out of their fields the summer after 4th grade.

We listened to a presentation given by a local beekeeper before ending the afternoon with a walk around the "nature trails". The beauty and intricacy of God's creation is truly breathtaking.

Bees enjoying the nectar of some New England Asters.

"Wait for me, guys!"