Sweet

“Look,” Cole said, first thing this morning. “Look at this naughty thing someone did. I didn’t do it.” He pointed at two small pools of liquid on our wooden windowsill.

Puzzled, I got a dishtowel to wipe them up. They were sticky. I looked up and saw the window top was dripping. Sap? I looked harder. The ceiling was also dripping. Then I knew what it was – honey.

We’ve been hosting a bee colony in a tree in our yard for the last couple of years. I’ve really enjoyed when they’ve swarmed. Here they are two years ago, hanging out before they found a place for their new hive:



This past year I didn’t see a swarm, but I did see some had taken up residence in our house wall. I didn’t do anything about it for a few days until my baby’s room got bees in it. Then Kris climbed out on the roof and sealed the hole they were going into. I didn’t feel good about it, but we never saw any more bees.

Fast forward to now - I have four bowls collecting the honey. I called a beekeeper. He said even if the hive is inactive, I need to have it removed because the honey’s going to attract other insects, like ants. That means we’ll have to cut open the wall, have them take the honeycomb out, seal it, and plaster or drywall the wall and ceiling back together.

Kris said that it’s just what you deal with when you live in an old house.

After this discovery, we went to the grocery store. On the end of an aisle was a display of honey bears. Ty said, "We don't get our honey at the store. We get it from our ceiling!"

When we got home, they raced to the bowls to see how much we'd collected. “This one has so much in it!” Cole said. Ty said, “This is so cool! I love this!”

Living on a farm and getting meat from our own cattle, growing fresh fruits and vegetables in our garden . . . that’s one thing. Harvesting honey from our walls is taking this to a ridiculous level. Aside from that - biscuits with honey for everyone!