It was great to meet you at the park too! I’ll look forward to seeing you again. Now you have my email address–be sure to email me if you have any questions about the group.

I’m afraid my photos might have misled you–our family hasn’t been to Japan. Just Japan Center in San Francisco! Though I’d love to go to Japan someday. Did you ever see the good-ness blog? http://goodness.typepad.com/goodness/
She’s a Canadian who lived in Japan until recently. Before she left she did a bunch of posts on her favorite ABCs of Japan. Very charming. I’ll bet you’d like it.

We have done a lot of overseas travel with our kids, though I haven’t written much about it here, because it was before my blog. That travel has been one of the best parts of homeschooling, and I think it played a big role in my kids’ educations and who they’re becoming.

As for the honey, isn’t that video cool? I think you may be talking about what’s called chunk honey, and yes, you could harvest that this way. It’s just honey with a chunk of the comb in it. Or maybe “unfiltered” honey is just honey that’s been left with bits of comb in? I’m not sure why people would want it that way…maybe for more local pollen.

If you’re taking your son for a pre-nap drive, you can look for our hive, since it’s in the front yard!

It was nice to meet you today at the park–wow, your website sure is an inspiration! I am fascinated by the beekeeping and all the other fantastic things you do with your family (including trips to Japan, one of my favorite countries), and it makes me more excited than ever for the future. I would love to keep in touch, and hopefully we’ll be at the park again in 2 weeks.

As far as the beekeeping goes, we watched the crush and strain video and are interested to know if the “unfiltered” honey with cappings that you sometimes see at the farmer’s market was harvested this way.

Thanks,
Barrie

Happy birthday to that 17yo. Blows your mind, don’t it? Annie’s is in 6 days, and I can’t believe all the growing up that’s gone on just in the last year, let alone the last 17. And that’s just ME.

When the lavender blooms out there in a month or so, it should be an otherworldly scene.

If my parents keep visiting when I check the hive on Sundays, they’ll be able to help you with inspections when they visit. They’ll be old pros. But you probably don’t have another extra-long beesuit…

I haven’t tried licking the hive tool yet. Maybe I can smear it on a little goat cheese.

On the other hand I did get my mom to veil up and look inside the hive the other day. I’ll be interested to see your percentage of drone comb. On natural foundation, mine seemed to run as high as 30%. We’ll see! Every single time I look in there, I learn new things. Usually I learn how little I know.

The busy will slow down, as we all know. Hang in there.