Being that I have never been stung by a bee in my 31 (shhh!) years of life, I was a bit nervous about going to visit our friend Jordan’s bee hives. I am pretty adventurous (lol) so I figured it was worth a look see, but the thought of our babies being stung was also a little off-putting. Jordan reassured me that it would be ok, and that he has an Epipen in his car should any of us get stung and swell up like a blueberry. 
   He gave us the lowdown on beehive instructions, where to, and not to walk, to stay calm, not swat, let the bees land on you, and that they are not out to harm us. And definitely don’t get freaked out and start running. I was all calm and cool until the lid of the first beehive came off, then I started to feel my senses heighten. Every time a bee flew close I just closed my eyes and pretended it wasn’t there, and hoped that it would just keep flying and not land on me. Because I could not be the wuss of the gang and show all the little 4 year olds around what it looks like when a grown woman cries from a bee sting! There was no cussing, no frantic movements, no crying done on my part. So proud!
   I did just fine. One of them even landed on me, and I just let it happen. Breath in, breath out. The kids did awesome too. There were a couple of times where we could here the bee buzzing pitch get higher and we slowly, and calmly evacuated the area, under Jordan’s advisement. But once the bees were “smoked” a bit more they calmed down and we could return and watch the honey cultivating procedure. 
   It was a neat process to watch. One I had never seen before. First smoking all the bees so they head to the bottom of the hive, gorge themselves on honey and get sugar drunk, and then slowly pull out the slats (I am sure they have a different name but half of the info I learned got lost while I was focusing on staying zen) and see how much honey they made, and store them in the car to bring back home to extract. Once at the house they scrapped the honeycombs with a fork to make sure all the holes (once again, there is a more technical name) were open so the honey could pour out, and then into the big spinner they went. Set a bucket below the valve, et voila, watch the golden goodness run out.
   Our girls weren’t fazed at all by the bees and all their brains were focusing on is how much free honey sampling they could get out of Jordan. At least they kept their manners, and when they asked for more honey every two minutes, it came with a please. I do believe that Ellia, la Gordita, is slightly addicted. The stuff tastes amazing, and if you want to check them out or get some for yourself head to Jordan and Kelsey’s website for Rosebud Valley Honey.
left to right: Nova, Ellia, Eben, Arias, Genevieve, Jordan (the Honey man, as the girls call him)

Ellia likes her first try

yep, we let Ellia hold the bee thing, full of bees

Eben gives it a go

more honey eating

and more…

and more…

once we told them no more honey, they moved on to eating the waxing honeycombs

and once the sugar kicked in they started climbing hay bales

Nova, Arias, and Asher
back at the shed the extraction begins

the spinner to get the honey out
giving it a try and getting my hands sticky