Sorry, Bees.

Nice to have a day off on a Monday, to rest up from the Easter Vacation. And quite a day it was, yesterday -- the bees came in. The latest replacements, three pounds of them, arrived happy and cheerful -- unlike the batch we got last time, which had been sent to Philadelphia first by mistake, and arrived days later mostly dead -- those who were left were Really Angry. They never got over the experience, I think. And now they're dead, having frozen to death over the winter we just finished getting through. We were full of remorse, cause we should have wrapped the hive, according to our bee guy, who warned us. The winters in Pittsburgh aren't usually so fierce. Alas.

Hence the new bees. I go out every hour or so to look at them, and they're busy, busy, busy. Cleaning up the hive, dragging dead bees and trash out onto the landing. Scouting off for likely flower fields (though the defunct hive left them a lot of honey; they won't be starving any time soon). Generally looking like a happy and well-queened hive.

Which they aren't, not really, since the queen is still stuck in her little cage, where she has to stay while they get used to her, so they don't kill her.

We'll let her out in a few days.

And in the meantime, the Scapa vest is sewn up now, and I'll finish up the armholes probably tonight. After which it'll get blocked again.

And then on to Catherine Parr!

Today, by the way, is Texas Independence Day --we commemorate with chicken fried steak, which, bizarrely enough, can be made to be not only tasty but low in fat -- I got the recipe from Cooking Light sometime in the long ago. Oh, yeah. We're happy.