A Tradgedy and A Trip

Our bees are gone. The hive was attached by small hive beetle. It has taken two weeks for me to talk about this without getting very angry. It is one thing to fail miserably at something when you aren't trying. It's another to fail when you are.

The hive beetles get in, kill the young brood and eat the honey. We checked our hive a couple of weeks ago, and by the time we went in again, the bees had absconded and the hive was infested. Apparently this just happens sometimes - there is not much that you can do to prevent it. We had a hive beetle trap in there, but apparently it did not do enough. We think that the answer is going to be to put the bees in the chicken yard (the chickens take care of bugs in the ground) but we'll have to wait until Spring to get new bees. From a honey standpoint I am not really set back, as I was not going to be able to take anything until Spring anyways, but the disapointment was huge.

So after the great bee absconding we left for New York to visit Dave's Family. We visited his Dad and Stepmother and his three younger siblings first, we all went to Adventureland in Farmingdale. I have never been to a small community theme park and it was pretty cool - especially since Dave used to go there as a kid.

Dave rode a bunch of rides with his youngest brother (Gregory) we didnt take a lot of pictures that day, but here are the two of them on the log ride:

Dave's Dad and I rode to convince his Sister, Tara, that the ride was safe,

 but she tricked us and didn't go. Sneaky girl. At least we got a good picture.

We had a great time with his Dad's family - they always go out of their way to make us comfortable, and we enjoy hanging out and being a part of their lives in the little ways that we can. Next time we'll take more pictures.

After leaving his Dad's house we headed to his Grandmother's 80th birthday clambake extraordinaire. It rained the entire day, but the family and the tent made the best of the day and everyone had a good time. The food was good, the company was great. We spent a little more time with his Mom and the rest of the family before heading home, and even got in a pre-season Jets game with Dave's Grandfather and an afternoon of crabbing. We felt special, everyone seemed to want to hang out with us.

We got home a few days before Irene came through, but so far we hear all is well with all of the Long Island family. We miss you guys and hope you'll come visit soon! It's nice here in the Fall!