It was 90 F today. April 16 and 90 degrees! Poor Boston Marathon runners. Â Poor spinach seedlings. Poor beekeeper in her hot bee suit. The bees didn’t seem to mind it much, probably because until Saturday they were in Georgia, where they were bred. Â I shook two packages. So glad I got it all done …
Author Archives: kaat
Building a Hive (ii): Building the Hive Bodies
After the frames, the boxes. The priority is two hive stands and four deeps, two for each of the new colonies and one for a swarm box. The four mediums as honey supers, and one shallow that I want to experiment with will be for later. I still had two bottom boards, among which is …
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New Pots, and Clay Creations by Amie
Last session Amie also took classes with my fabulous pottery teacher, Lisa Dolliver. These are some of the pieces she made: The unicorn is a piggy bank. At the moment it has a clay blue heart sitting in its slot. Aren’t they lovely? That, by the way, is a Go board: DH and Amie are …
Reversing Brood Boxes on the Dandelion
After planting hundreds of fava beans, peas and trellises, and transplanting chard, lettuce and spinach, I looked at that hive, saw the bees hard at work, and knew it was now or never to go deep into the hive to see if I needed to do a brood box reversal. First I took off the …
Building a Hive (i): Assembling the Frames
Last week some of our BEElieve group met at the house of A., who was the first to pick up his bee package (that morning). The package looked very robust, with very few dead bees at the bottom. We went out to admire the setting of the hive, then A. hived the bees as I …
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Colony 1 and a Beautiful, Strange Bee
This has been some bee season already. Last year I was still mourning the imminent death of my colony (though it didn’t happen). This season we are, according to a local hive inspector, already in the month of May. Yesterday, finding it suddenly quite warm and seeing all the bees hanging out “on the porch” …
Fun Designing
This for the bees. I’m going to make my own hive bodies (boxes, bottom board, inner and outer covers). I’ll buy the frames and foundation. This for the water catchment, on Craiglist, for $100. Just need to borrow someone’s truck to pick up two of them. But the majority of fun is being had with …
Resilience Gardening: Water and Animals
The last couple of days I’ve been in the garden. Mostly I’ve been cleaning up. I do most of my Fall cleanup in Spring, so that the fallen leaves can replenish and blanket the soil during Winter.  Soon I’ll put the leaf shredder to the humongous leaf piles.  That shredded stuff is great for the compost bins. …
Amie (6) Talks about Divine Punishment
The other night Amie didn’t want me to turn off the light in her room. She usually has no problem falling asleep without it, so I asked why. – Because I don’t feel secure. She used that word, “secure.” I asked what makes her feel insecure. – The evil spirits. – Evil spirits? – Yes, …
Stay Positive
Insight of the day: In this work you have to stay positive. Nothing is to be gained from becoming downhearted and negative. Nothing, not even your own personal satisfaction. And notice that I said “positive”. Not “hopeful”: that’s another thing. More on this later!