What's the Best Bee-Related Christmas Present You Got This Year?

[The15thMember]

Hope everybody had a good Christmas and New Year's!  As a first year beekeeper I got a lot of bee-related presents this year.  I got a bookmark with a resined worker on it, a beautiful necklace that looks like honeycomb filled with honey, and the book "Bee" by Rose-Lynn Fisher which is full of electron microscope photographs of bees and their anatomical structures, which is sooooo cool!  My favorite thing that I got though is a native bee observation hive.  The front of the hive swings open to reveal the holes behind Plexiglas so you can see the cell chambers behind them.  It has holes sized for mason bees and leafcutters.  The funniest bee gift I got was a beekeeping Barbie Doll!  It's actually pretty fun, she's got her jacket and veil and gloves on, although her veil is split down the back to accommodate her ponytail, which is hilarious!  The set comes with this pseudo-flow hive with one removable frame, two honey bears, and some little plastic flowers and bees that you can stick all over them, as well as a little plastic tablet with apple pay for the honey bears on the screen.  Although I don't collect Barbies, I am a toy collector, and I have little sisters who I play Barbies with sometimes, so it was a really fun gift.  What's the best beekeeping gift you got this year?

(Also by the way, if moderators think this is better in the Coffee House, feel free to move it.  I'm not sure if it's bee-related enough to be in the general forum, or since it's just chit-chat if it's better over there.)         

[Kathyp]

I only got one and it was a bee ornament for my tree 

[BeeMaster2]

I received a Palm Abbe Digital Refractometer. Pretty cool. Put a drop of honey in it and you get a accurate digital readout. No more trying to find the right light to get a good reading.
Jim

[herbhome]

A bag of queen cups and 10 chinese grafting tools. The pressure is on!

[SiWolKe]

Wonderful presents, T15M!

I got two hours help from my husband to put wire mesh around my ten hives against the woodpecker which had already damaged 5 of my hives, hope the bees still live.
He paid for the mesh ( 100?) and has gotten the bloody fingers.

And a promise to clean and stabilize with wire all my 156 frames, plus a promise to do all the hard lifting work with my hives next season plus to come with me to bavaria to meet my collegues, paying for the overnights.

 

[DuaneB]

I received a Palm Abbe Digital Refractometer. Pretty cool. Put a drop of honey in it and you get a accurate digital readout. No more trying to find the right light to get a good reading.
Jim

Which model did you get? PA201? PA202? or something else.

Thanks,
Duane

[BeeMaster2]

Duane,
Not shire which model number it is but it is this one.
https://www.mannlakeltd.com/misco-palm-abbe-refractometer
Jim

[blackforest beekeeper]

Duane,
Not shire which model number it is but it is this one.
https://www.mannlakeltd.com/misco-palm-abbe-refractometer
Jim

we bought a similar model and price of janpanese make. worked fine with honey the way you sell it in the glass. but out of the extractor - varying or no values. impssible out in the field off the comb.
retailer told us it was not adapted well to little parts of something in the honey. so instead we got an optical one (almost same price....), which is doing fine and I feel a lot better with.

[DeepCreek]

The best present I got was SURVIVORS ; )

[blackforest beekeeper]

I got a jar of honey!

...kidding...

[MikeyN.C.]

Santa gave me a Kreg Accu-cut , rip-cut slide.