Ant Dorey and the Attack of the Very Ticked Off Bees

Posted by OfWoodandEarth April 15, 2026

Ant Dorey and the Attack of the Very Ticked Off Bees

Our squishy little potato turned two months old! And she is all smiles! I don't think any of our kiddos started smiling as early as she has! It's so adorable and just makes you wanna SQUEEZE her!

I'm going to try and make it tradition to do the comparisons with the other siblings! We shall see if I can find them all, haha. In person, I think Hazel looks the most like Rylee. These pictures...maybe Mena? They all look SO different at two months! None of them look the same.

Our farm monthly to-do list reminds us that we should get our swarm catchers hung up by the first weekend in March. So I began March by rounding up all the swarm catchers we had left in the trees. Once I got them down, I noticed that they were in rough shape. The paint was chipping and squirrels had tried to get in in a few spots. If we wanted these things to last some more seasons, I was going to need to give them a little TLC. So I roped in a few kids (mostly a Pippa) to come help me put a fresh coat of paint on the swarm catchers before I filled all of them up as much drawn comb as we had and sprayed them with Swarm Command (probably some version of Lemongrass essential oil. It mimics the smell of a Queen Bee, and bees are more likely to colonize an area that used to be home to bees. Go figure.).

Someone was extra proud of her paint hands!

When I collected the swarm boxes, I also checked on the swarm that moved in last October. Most of the time, swarms that colonize that late in the season won't make it because they aren't big enough to survive a cold winter and they haven't harvested enough honey to make it through. However, these guys must have been tough, because they were still going strong! Sam and I locked them in for three days, moved them to their new location, then stuck a tree branch in the entrance to their swarm catcher and let them out. The tree branch is supposed to make them think that a storm or something changed the layout of their home entrance so they reset their internal GPS homing systems. The usual rule of thumb is to move a hive three feet a day or three miles. We've found the tree branch method actually does work. We did find some stragglers that went back to the old location, but the majority of the hive stayed put.

After getting them settled, I took a look in our other hive to see how it was doing. I had already put a new box on this season so when the flowers started blooming they would have plenty of storage space. The temperatures were in the mid-forties that morning, so I figured the colder temps would help keep the bees calm and I wouldn't need my smoker. I was very wrong.

The bees were so mad, I had to go back to the house and get Sam to get me the smoker. And this was after they stung me probably over twenty times in my legs. I made the mistake of tucking my pants into my boots instead of the other way around, and so the bees congregated around my legs and got me where my pants were pulled flat against my leg. This time was even worse than the last time I got stung 12 times. My right leg swelled more than it ever has from bees before. The next day, I had no ankle on my left side, and I could hardly walk without the swelling throbbing painfully if I sat for longer than thirty seconds. By the next day, I didn't have an ankle on either side of my leg. It took several days for the swelling in my ankle to go down but by then, the swelling had crept up into my knee. Every time I bent or walked up stairs my knee would twinge with pain. I was still in pain a week later and asked a doctor friend if I needed to go in for a shot, but he convinced said it wouldn't help and convinced me to wait a few more days. He was right, and my knee finally stopped hurting about 10 days after my brutal bee attack. Side note, I have a friend that told me she heard people can actually get MORE allergic the more often you are stung by bees. Has anyone heard this before? I feel like I'm doomed.

The day after the bee incident, we woke up early to go fishing at Millennium Park.

I hobbled around cleaning pond gunk off of fishing lures while Daddy helped them to catch some trout.

It had been awhile since I'd gotten out the good camera, and I couldn't help but snap a few shots of this gorgeous African Goose.

Rylee and I found out where one of their nesting spots were and managed to grab a handful of eggs that we wanted to take home and put in the incubator. I had no idea that it's apparently a big no no to take goose eggs from a community park. Frowned upon maybe but I didn't know that you could get fined. Luckily, we got no frowns and no fines! But unfortunately, I ended up dropping most of them while trying to get them out of the reach of Luke and Mena. And apparently, no one around here has any African Geese eggs for sale for me to hatch. Daddy is probably a little relieved since the incubator isn't done. But here's a size comparison if you've never had the pleasure of seeing a goose egg in real life. One of these is not a potato.

I think we ended up going home with six or so fish after Uncle Keith gave us what he caught, too. We've still yet to eat them, but they are on the menu for dinner this week! Know any good trout recipes?

Sam put a watering system into the peacock pen so he finally doesn't have to go up and water them every few days (or forget to water them for a few days). It's the same system setup as all of the ones we've had in the past. An IBC tote hooked up to PVC with chicken nipples attached. I couldn't believe how big Blue had gotten over winter! His tail feathers have come in, and he is BLUE. We plan on moving the peacock pen this year and hopefully finishing the run so these guys can get out and enjoy a little more space.

And jelly season started! So far we've made violet jelly, and three new to us jellies: mint jelly, Red Bud jelly, and I tried Forsythia jelly, but I only had 2 cups of blooms instead of the 4 (we learned a few years ago to double the recommended flower dose to get the full flavor potential. Except dandelion. Leave that sucker at two unless you want a bitter jelly.) Now if only I could find the time to pick and process some dandelions so we can have some jelly and maybe wine!

Sam also managed to get his backhoe started for the first time (you can watch it, here)! He's been working on the backhoe for what seems like forever. To get it to this point he had to switch out the generator for an alternator, clean up the carburetor, replace some hydraulic lines, change the oil, degrease a DISGUSTING oil bath air filter (seriously, it was so bad), do some rewiring, flush the coolant, fix a seized power steering valve body, fix a hole in the hole in the radiator (that he made, haha), replace the power steering filter, and replace the ignition coil. Possibly more, but that's everything he could remember after I put him on the spot!

On the family side of things, Mena turned 2!

Fr. Edwin got her a cake from Burke's Bakery. Rachel and I made cake pops using a mold that Sam 3d printed for us so we could get the perfect circle cake pops. Unfortunately, we are still learning how to dye almond bark (dye makes it weirdly clumpy) and how best to dip the cake pops in the almond bark and let them dry without being misshapen. At least they tasted amazing (or so I'm told since almond bark has dairy in it).

One of our friends invited us to a Catholic homeschool get together. In the past it was at their church which was about an hour away from us. Now that it's at a different friend's house, it's only 30 minutes away. Mrs. Teresa teaches art and her mother Grandma Becky (Fr. Wheeler's mom for those local folk) usually does a sing-a-long session with the kiddos that is a whole lot of fun. It's really nice getting together with a bunch of like minded moms and seeing all the littles (and bigs) running around. I have the most kids but several of the moms have 3 or 4 as well. So we end up having a lot of people crammed into this super awesome house that I'm absolutely in love with (and that Grandma Becky's husband built).

Rylee is gearing up for her dance recital coming up in May. She will have an acro, ballet, and tap routine. She is performing at 1:00 and then because of some scheduling conflicts with siblings, she will perform the same routines again at 5:00. We are excited to see the cuteness! For a sneak peak at part of her acro routine, you can watch it here.

I officially announced the start of my business and purchased an app called Procreate to allow me to draw with my Apple Pencil. I don't think the logo turned out bad! I also made an alternative version for the instances when I need a more circular logo (like social media profiles). I was really pleased with how they turned out.

I also started a website, a Facebook page, and an instagram page for GravissiMum to try and promote our upcoming book: ABC: Where is Mary? which is releasing on Mother's Day!

May be an image of ‎text that says '‎Gravissil Mùm lùm faith ل filled learning for life f Facebook Facebook.com/GravissiMum Website gravissimumllc.com Instagram instagram.com/gravissimumllc‎'‎

You can check out some of the reels I made in March to draw attention to our business. I had heard that 3-4 posts a week was what you should aim for. I think I made it a couple weeks or so before I just said "meh" to the whole social media thing. I will continue to make reels and promote and post, but I'm not going to stress about quantity. I'm one person, after all. But PLEEEAAAASSSSEEE follow us. And tell your friends. And have them tell their friends! We have a book coming out in May, and then are expecting to release two more books by the end of the summer!

Now, as always, please enjoy some super cute photos of my super cute kiddos.