Harvesting Zucchini and Bee Wax

Since we had left our bees in basically just a super without frames since last Friday night in order to prevent swarming, they have started building natural comb.
A lot.

After we purchased the frames yesterday, we needed to install them.

However, the ladies had already built up quite some wax, which needed to be cut in order to put the more orderly frames with cell foundation in.

I looked at my bees, thinking about what I was going to do: Cutting several chunks of wax from the top of the frames armed with the biggest knife that was in our kitchen's knife block (BTW: THANKS JP!).

Seeing me hesitate, Roberto asked me, "Shall I do it?"

"No. I can do it."

"Just move really fast."

It is pretty wild to attempt cutting wax off from a few frames with hundreds of bees working diligently on the wax. My intuition told me to move really slowly not to acidentally cut someone; or stab I should probably say.

And so I  did. Got a few big pieces of wax out in which some of the cell the girls already had put honey in. Yummy.

I noticed that in the natural comb, the empty cells were outside and the honey in the centre and on the bottom, while in the frames the cannot do that. Then you have honey cells next to brood cells. Thought it was interesting and am wondering whether this actually makes more sense for them to have the kitchen right next to the nursery?!

Then I harvested some zucchinis for dinner. Had Diana over for dinner (thanks for visiting!) and made garlic grilled lamb chops with grilled zucchinis and roasted rosemary potatoes. YUM-YUM!

We have more than twenty plants and at least four different varieties: Yellow Crookneck (the yellow crooked thing on top), Black Beauty (the dark green ones), Summer Squash (the ball on the left) and a hybrid from Germany (lighter green).

"Nature never says one thing and wisdom another." Decimus Junius Juvenalis