Of bees and bunnies

I'm going to digress from the bees for a moment to talk about the most recent addition to our family. Several months ago, we noticed a black bunny in a neighbor's front yard and realized that it had belonged to a family who'd rented a house around the corner. They'd moved out about a year ago, leaving the bunny behind to fend for herself. This courageous little rabbit survived for almost a year on her own, living under some decking in the back yard of another house that was in foreclosure.

I couldn't bear to let her keep living that way — we had to try to rescue her. Our next door neighbor reported that he had seen the rabbit in his front yard and she had taken a carrot from his hand. So, we began visiting the bunny almost every evening when she would be out foraging. I bought some bunny treats and soon she would hop over and gently take them from me. It took several weeks and a lot of patience, but I was able to coax the bunny into a pet carrier and bring her home a week ago.

We named the bunny Katie Scarlett after Scarlett O'Hara, the ultimate survivor. KS is settling into a routine. She has a nice hutch, plenty of fresh veggies and herbs and clean water, and she gets to roam around a rabbit-fenced area on our screen porch a couple of times a day and play with rabbit-y toys. The vet treated her ears for mites and infection, and she is otherwise in good health. We are allowed to scratch her ears and stroke her cheeks and back, and today, she actually let me pick her up and hold her in my arms. This is real progress for a domesticated bunny that had been living "in the wild" for a year. She is brave, spunky, smart, sweet and funny, and we love her.

Now, for the bees. I opened the hive last Saturday for a quick peek and saw that they have moved up into the second super and are drawing out comb. The frames in the bottom super appeared to be well on their way to being full of comb and brood (the queen is laying eggs and soon the size of the colony will increase). The bees continue to consume a lot of sugar-water, and I am down to my last bag of Aldi sugar. Time for another sugar run.

That's all for now, but I'll leave you with this memorable quote from Gone With the Wind:
"Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O'Hara, that Tara, that land doesn't mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing that lasts."
— Gerald O'Hara