She was but a gleam in her father’s eyes.
When Shigeo found out I wanted to build another log hive, he offered me a myrtlewood log. Myrtlewood is a hardwood that excels all other hardwoods in variety of color and beauty of grain. I was excited by the prospect because bees live in myrtlewood trees. In fact, my other log hive, Bee Beard, is occupied by feral bees from a Myrtlewood tree.
Off to a good start. Log is carved out about 18″ from both ends
Shigeo brings his ‘big dog’ to help out
Shigeo gets to work on lengthening the cavity
This is so familiar…when the chain saw cuts don’t meet in the middle, we’ve got to do it the hard way.
Progress…Shigeo pulls out some wood.
Hollow all the way through, finally.
Cut the top to use as a possible quilt box
Starting the cut on the observation window
My son brought his Sawz-all to the task
Observation cut-out for window is completed. This was a lot of work…I’m glad my son was able to do most of it…I was able to visit with my grandson.
Good…I think we’re ready for Brian Vorwaller, the professional chainsaw artist who will be in town next week on April 4th. I wonder what kind of face he will want to carve.
Getting Bee-atrice ready for prime time
Meet Bee-atrice…a Female Companion for Bee Beard
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
Impressive stuff, great step by step; I’m looking forward to seeing the carving.
I have a few Larch tree stumps lined up for you know what, hopefully I won’t have to resort to the bar, but I’ll definitely be looking for a neighbour with a ‘big dog’ 🙂
Without the ‘big dog’ and bar, I would have had to split the whole log top to bottom, presenting other issues. Last year it took me several days with the bar. This time since we were tag teaming it took less than an hour. THANK YOU, SHIGEO! 🙂