Bees!

The bee displays are one of my favorite parts of the state fair. There are beekeepers that keep hives with little sections like this they can pull out and enter in the fair. They run little pipes outside the building so the bees can come and go. I don't know what happens to bees that happen to be out working when they close up the fair.

Here is the blue-ribbon entry:



Our neighbor, Claude Duncan, kept a beehive behind his old greenhouse next door when I was little. I would sit and watch the bees come and go, and he would give me his old beekeeper magazines ("Gleanings in Bee Culture"). With these hive sections at the fair I get to see much more than I ever could at Mr. Duncan's hive.



You can even see the queen, which they helpfully mark with some sort of white paint:



Even if you don't see a queen bee, you still might see a honey queen!



The honey sticks - plastic straws filled with honey - are one of the cheapest treats at the fair - 25 cents, I think. Of course, we left with a box of comb honey too.