The bees are doing great – although they are still waiting for their replacement queen. Hopefully she will arrive this week. They busy cleaning out their new hive (I had to dump all the bees that died during shipment into the hive with the live bees, and they have been taking the corpses out and dumping them away from the hive.), drawing wax comb, and pollinating my garden. Since it’s so early in the season, I haven’t see any other honeybees in the yard yet, so whenever I see a bee, I know it’s one of mine.
They are extremely interesting. I like to sit a couple of feet from the hive and just watch them come and go. They don’t appear to mind me being around the hive, which is lovely.
It’s nice timing for them, because our old apple tree is fully in bloom.
I’m also happy that my grapes are just beginning to leaf out.
And the currants have young fruit.
My new vegetable garden in the front yard is struggling a bit, because I have been invaded by root maggots. It’s really bad; I’ve never had enough maggots before to even notice them. I’ve lost several of my cabbage and kale seedlings, as well as several onions. To combat this, I sprayed the garden tonight with beneficial nematodes. I’ve never used them before, but they are supposed to work wonders against critters like cutworms and root maggots. I hope so! It would be lovely to have this problem solved, especially since I’m not willing to use any chemicals.
Out of Eden 
Bees will pretty much leave you alone, unless they are agitated. I took a photo of one of my Dad’s colonies that had swarmed today. I was less then a foot away without gear on, and they just chilled on their branch.
They’re pretty awesome insects.
I like watching them get water out of our pound, it’s almost like meditation.